21.   Since its debut, the device has been used on hundreds of patients too sick to survive long enough for a donor heart.

22.   The donor heart was sutured in place, the organ was warmed gently and as it approached normal body temperature it started to beat vigorously.

23.   Today, Corbet waits for a donor heart to come his way.

24.   Two American patients who have been hard to match to a donor heart have been living with Novacor pumps for more than two years.

25.   With no donor heart available for transplant, she would die.

26.   After the heart recipients died, tissue samples were taken from each donor heart and from remnants of the old heart not removed during transplant surgery.

27.   But Higgins said that even if the new device appears to work well, it is unlikely to soon replace the demand for donor hearts.

28.   Doctors said the donor heart must be another child because of the size.

29.   Finding a donor heart would likely take five or six months, Reardon said.

30.   Four patients remain on the list, after several others had either improved or had died while waiting for donor hearts.