World’s Smallest Pacemaker Goes in Via Syringe — And Dissolves When No Longer Needed

source: nicenews.com  |  image: pixabay.com

Scientists have developed a tiny pacemaker with tiny hearts in mind. A team of engineers at Northwestern University built a device that’s so small it can be inserted noninvasively via syringe and dissolves when it’s no longer needed. That makes it particularly well-suited for newborns with heart defects, who often only need temporary pacing.
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“We have developed what is, to our knowledge, the world’s smallest pacemaker,” bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers, who led the device development, told Northwestern Now. “There’s a crucial need for temporary pacemakers in the context of pediatric heart surgeries, and that’s a use case where size miniaturization is incredibly important. In terms of the device load on the body — the smaller, the better.”
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Experimental cardiologist Igor Efimov, who co-led the research, added that for most of the roughly 1% of children born with congenital heart defects, the heart self-repairs within about a week. “But those seven days are absolutely critical,” Efimov said. “Now, we can place this tiny pacemaker on a child’s heart and stimulate it with a soft, gentle, wearable device. And no additional surgery is necessary to remove it.”

​Watch a video of Rogers explaining how it works.​