Doctors in Houston have successfully performed the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant.

Texas doctors have performed the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant to help a man with a large head wound from cancer treatment.

MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital doctors announced on Thursday that they carried out the 15-hour operation on May 22.

The recipient - Jim Boysen, a 55-year-old software developer - expects to leave the hospital on Thursday with a new kidney and pancreas along with the scalp and skull grafts. He said he was stunned at how well doctors matched him to a donor with similar skin and colouring.

"It's kind of shocking, really, how good they got it. I will have way more hair than when I was 21," Boysen joked in an interview with The Associated Press.

Last year, doctors in the Netherlands said they replaced most of a woman's skull with a 3-D printed plastic one. The Texas operation is thought to be the first skull-scalp transplant from a human donor, as opposed to an artificial implant or a simple bone graft.