BUSINESS BRIEFING / TECHNOLOGY

Apple Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs has an “excellent prognosis,” a doctor at a Tennessee hospital said, confirming that Jobs had a liver transplant there.

“He received a liver transplant because he was . . . the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,” said James D. Eason, chief of transplantation at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis. “Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.”

Eason said in a news release posted on the hospital’s website that when Jobs received the transplant, he was in end-stage liver disease.

The hospital didn’t say when the surgery took place. The Wall Street Journal reported it was two months ago. Apple hasn’t confirmed that report and has said only that Jobs was returning to work as expected by the end of June.