Canavero made the comments while speaking to a would-be patient via video link.

The Italian regularly makes the headlines for his controversial ideas on human head transplantation. He claims a successful outcome of the surgery is possible, and that recent experiments his colleagues have conducted in China and South Korea prove his point.

"Risk is part of life. But risks can be contained in this kind of surgery," Canavero had told RT in a previous interview.

Canavero was heavily criticized for his views at an annual surgeons' meeting in Annapolis, USA, held in summer 2015.

Although he spoke of the allegedly successful experiments carried out on mice by his Chinese colleague, Ren Xiaoping, the audience of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons was not convinced.