The following report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks first aired July 28, 2005, on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Heart transplantation saves lives, but when it comes to infants and children, donor organs are especially hard to come by. Most die waiting for a new heart.

The development of a new device will change that. The pedia flow -- about 1 inch long and a half-inch across -- is a ventricular assist device that will eventually be used in children and newborns who are in end-stage heart failure.

Dr. Steven Webber, director of pediatric heart transplant, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh: "One quarter of the children waiting for hearts will die waiting because there aren't good means to support them while they're waiting for an organ."

Kamayah Terri, 7 months old, is among those waiting nationwide. Her need developed three months ago

Quinani Mendez, mother: "She was very fussy, she started sweating, she wasn't eating as much as she used to, she was breathing very heavily and was chafing at her stomach."

Tests revealed Kamayah's heart was nearly three times the normal size, so big and weak that it couldn't pump properly. She was in heart failure and needed a transplant.

Locating donor hearts takes two months. Kamayah didn't have that time.

The pedia flow could help. Its rotary pump would send blood in one end and out the other

Webber: "It can pump potentially several pints of blood in a minute, and the whole device will be implanted inside the body so that it doesn't get infected."

It's designed by Pitt, Carnegie Mellon and industry to sustain circulation for six months, but it's not yet ready. To save Kamayah, doctors improvised.

Larger than the pedia flow, the Berlin Heart fits in the left side of the heart and has a computer-controlled external pump. Long-term risks are infection, blood clots and stroke.

Mendez: "It's able to allow her to able to continue to fight until she gets her heart."

Doctors hope the pedia flow will be ready for clinical trials in three or four years. Meanwhile, they're also hoping the Berlin Heart will be approved for use in all children with heart failure until the pedia flow is ready.