Jobs is "special person" Eason told financial news service , having performed a liver transplant on Jobs earlier this year. "He's really a genuinely nice person."

Eason has replaced the livers of about 10 people with the extremely rare cancer, called a neuroendocrine tumour, including Jobs, although the Apple CEO hasn't publicly stated the transplant was carried out to address a recurrence of the cancer.

Eason denied that Jobs had bypassed an organ transplant waiting list by travelling to Memphis, Tennessee for treatment.

"It's not gaming the system," Eason told Bloomberg. "It's people choosing where they want their health care. Some people would leave Tennessee to go to California or somewhere else to seek treatment. Now we have people coming from California to Tennessee."

Overall, 91 per cent of Eason's patients have healthy livers one year after surgery, compared with a national US average of 87 per cent according to Bloomberg.