Edmonton will be the first of two centres in North America specializing in using an artificial heart designed specifically for the young, a hospital announced Tuesday.

Stollery Children's Hospital has been chosen as a training centre for doctors to implant the EXCOR pediatric heart ? a mechanical device that sits outside the body with tubes connecting it to the child's failing heart, taking over much of its work.

The artificial heart can keep children alive until a donor heart becomes available, said Dr. Ivan Rebeyka, a pediatric heart surgeon at Stollery Children's Hospital. It can also act as a bridge until a patient's own organ recovers.

The mechanical heart has kept 188 children alive worldwide when their own hearts failed.

But until now, any hospital that wanted to implant the mechanical heart needed to send its medical team to Berlin for training.

Berlin Heart, the German-based maker of the device, chose the Edmonton hospital to become the first North American training centre. If a child in Canada or the western U.S. needs the mechanical heart, a specialized team from Stollery will be sent to the institution to train local doctors on how to use the device and give them medical support.

"We're delighted that there's a Canadian centre for the Berlin Heart," said Dr. Camille Hancock-Frieson of the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, who hasn't had a chance to be trained on using the heart yet. "It's had a growing use."

The deal means children in Atlantic Canada will now have access to the heart.

Currently, one or two children die waiting for a heart in Canada each year and others become too sick to be eligible for a transplant.

So far, 10 children in Canada have benefited from the heart and doctors estimate that about 10 to 12 others could use it. It costs about $200,000 to buy time for a child who might not otherwise live long enough to receive a real heart.

"I feel more secure and I know that I can wait for a good heart for me to come," said Melissa Mills, a 15-year-old from Camrose, Alta., who received the new device and is on the waiting list for a heart transplant.

The heart comes in sizes small enough for newborns and is designed specifically for their needs.


Traditional life-support systems can keep a child with end-stage heart disease alive for a few weeks, while the EXCOR has sustained children for one year or more.