A new heart pacemaker can improve dramatically the lives of heart patients, Newsmax Health reports. Unlike current pacemakers, the device can be implanted without surgery and without wires.

Like traditional pacemakers, the new device treats the too-slow heart rhythm problem known as bradycardia. It works by monitoring the heart’s electrical rhythm and, if the heart rate is too slow, provides the electrical stimulation to regulate it.

“Historically, pacemaker devices and cardiac defibrillators have been fairly bulky metal devices,” said Dr. Chauncey Crandall, director of prevention at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic. “The goal has always been to shrink them. Now, with today’s microprocessors, we have been able to do that.”

Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan announced the breakthrough recently after it successfully implanted the first of the new pacemakers. The device is installed with a catheter that is threaded into the groin and then up to the heart via the femoral vein.

The possible advantages of the wireless pacemaker include the elimination of a surgical pocket and no visible pacemaker device under a patient’s chest skin. There is no incision scar and no restrictions on a patient’s activities. Implantation takes only about 10-15 minutes.

The new pacemaker still must get FDA approval before it becomes widely available. Until then it will be available only in clinical trials.