In Global News: Singing With Donated Lungs, the PURE Study Reports, and Congenital Aortic Stenosis

Patient Care
An opera singer talks about receiving a double-lung transplant.
A team at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Lebanon performs the first transcaval percutaneous aortic valve replacement in the region.
A woman who received a transplanted heart in 2013 will run the Chicago Marathon on Sunday with her donor’s father.
 
Drugs and Devices
BioStable Science & Engineering, Inc. announced the first commercial use of its HAART 200 Aortic Annuloplasty Device, which has been cleared by the US FDA to facilitate bicuspid aortic valve repair.
 
Research, Trials, and Funding
Researchers in Ohio, US, find that balloon aortic valvuloplasty is a successful intervention for 70% of patients with noncritical congenital aortic stenosis. Is a 70% success rate good enough?
The second report from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study, an observational study of over 130,000 people from many different countries, finds a positive association between activity level and lowered risk of cardiovascular disease. The conclusions from the first PURE report questioned the current views of carbohydrates and fats in a healthful diet.
Researchers at Gentofte Hospital in Denmark find that infective endocarditis developed in 2.5% of patients with end-stage renal disease.
A study from researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington in the US finds that zinc interferes with overactive calcium signaling to specifically impede cancerous esophageal cell growth in culture.