OSAKA -- The patient who received a heart from a brain-dead donor in February left Osaka University Hospital Friday, 75 days after the operation -- the first such transplant under the Organ Transplant Law of 1997.

The patient, identified only as a male resident of Osaka Prefecture in his 40s, no longer shows symptoms of the infection that delayed his release from the hospital for about a month, doctors at the institution said.

His discharge shows that the nation's first heart transplant under the 1997 law -- and the first since a controversial operation conducted by Sapporo Medical College Professor Juro Wada in 1968 -- was a success. Doctors and transplant experts expressed hope that the move will serve as encouragement to patients awaiting heart transplants.