Researchers Build World's First Fully Implantable Micro-PaceMaker

Most pacemaker devices available today are designed for use in adults. There are no options for treating the condition of abnormal heart rhythms in a fetus. Statistics suggest that every year around 500 pregnancies in the U.S. alone are affected by fetal heart block. Therefore, a team of biomedical engineers from the Viterbi School of Engineering at University of Southern California along with the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles came up with a device that is now being called the world's first fully implantable micro-pacemaker designed for use in a fetus with complete heart block. What's more, the scientists also are anticipating the first use of this pacemaker on a human in the near future.

Whenever a healthy heart beats, an electrical signal moves from the upper to the lower chambers of the heart. With the movement of this signal, the heart contracts and pumps blood. In medical terms, a congenital heart block is a defect of the heart’s electrical system that originates in the developing fetus. Although the condition can be diagnosed in utero, all attempts to treat the condition with a standard pacemaker so far have failed. With the new micro pacemaker that can be implanted in utero, without causing harm to the mother or the fetus rings a bell for preventing miscarriage and premature birth in babies affected with these abnormalities.

The biomedical engineers from USC used various microfabrication techniques they are skilled in to create this biomedical device in the form of a micro pacemaker, which is small enough to reside entirely within the fetus, in such a way that the fetus moves freely without dislodging any electrodes.

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