BRUSSELS, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Doctors at a Belgian hospital have carried out a ground-breaking surgery to replace the cardiac muscles of a patient with new cardiac muscles made from bone marrow, VRT news reported Saturday.

The operation carried out at the East Limburg Hospital in Genk, 80 km east of Brussels, was the first of its kind in the world ever.

The East Limburg Hospital is part of an American-led global research project, which was aimed to develop a method of replacing damaged heart muscles by using stem cell technology.