(Yicai) Oct. 15 -- A Chinese medical team has developed the world’s smallest and lightest maglev-powered pediatric biventricular assist device for children which has already been successfully implanted in three children suffering from heart failure.

The artificial heart, which was completed late last year, weighs 45 grams, around 75 percent less than mainstream international products. With a diameter of just 29 millimeters, it is half the size of the smallest comparable device worldwide.

The device was developed by a team led by Dong Nianguo, director of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Union Hospital under the Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and in collaboration with Shenzhen Core Medical Technology.

Artificial hearts, or ventricular assist devices, help prolong patients’ lives by supporting heart function and buying more time for a transplant. However, most VADs are designed for adolescents and adults, and children often are not able to tolerate the weight or size of these models.

“The third generation of fully magnetically levitated artificial hearts has a two-year survival rate that surpasses that of heart transplants and has become a key treatment for end-stage heart failure,” an insider from Shenzhen Core Medical Technology told Yicai. “But until now, these devices were mainly used for adults and older children.”

“The newly developed artificial heart is specifically designed for children weighing between 10 kilograms and 30 kg and with a body surface area of less than 1 square meter,” the person told Yicai.

About 40,000 children in China are hospitalized for heart failure each year, data show. Heart transplants remain the last effective means to treat advanced heart failure in children, but the shortage of donors means up to 40 percent of young patients die while waiting for a transplant.

Editor: Kim Taylor