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May 25, 2012: Italian doctors have implanted the world’s smallest artificial heart into a 16-month old baby boy in order to save his life and to keep him breathing until a heart donor is found for a transplant. The doctors at Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome carried out this operation last month, but made it public this week.
Suffering from dilated myocardiopathy, the baby was kept alive for 13 days before the operation and is reportedly doing well now. Dilated myocardiopathy is a heart muscle disease that usually causes enlarged fibers of the heart, gradually making the heart weak and finally stopping its ability to pump blood effectively.