Aortic stenosis, an abnormal narrowing of the heart valve, is the most frequently diagnosed heart valve disease. If you have severe aortic stenosis, surgery is usually recommended to replace the valve. Without surgery, only 50 percent survive an average of two years after symptoms first start to appear. Unfortunately, many of these patients are unable to have open valve replacement surgery because advanced age and multiple illnesses put them at too high risk for conventional surgery.

"For high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, a less invasive treatment has been long sought," said James R. Taylor Jr., MD, Chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Co-Director, Stony Brook Heart Institute. "With transcatheter aortic valve replacement, there is now hope for older patients who have other significant illnesses."

Stony Brook University Cancer Center continues to be very active in its role as a community resource for health information and as an advocate for optimal and preventive care.

The Cancer Center was one of nearly 20 community and healthcare organizations in Suffolk and Nassau Counties that was selected to serve as an enrollment site for the American Cancer Society's (ACS) Cancer Prevention Study (CPS-3). The ACS's goal is to enroll 300,000 people nationwide to accumulate enough data to ultimately prevent cancer and save lives.

Ethan Zohn

On the heels of CPS-3 enrollment at Stony Brook, the Cancer Center will soon be hosting another event -- Stony Brook's ninth annual celebration of National Cancer Survivors Day^®. The June 9 event honors people who are living with and beyond cancer. This year's inspirational speaker is Ethan Zohn, a Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor, HIV/AIDS prevention educator, former professional soccer player and Survivor: Africa reality TV show celebrity. His thought-provoking message, Character: The Ultimate Survival Tool, is one that transcends cancer. It's about the importance of character and service to others. Survivors and their guests will have the opportunity to meet and mingle with Stony Brook's physicians and healthcare staff. This fun-filled day has activities for all ages, the Parade of Survivors, music and light refreshments. All are welcome to this free event, regardless of where they received treatment. For more information, call (631) 444-4000 or register online.

During warm weather months, it's natural for children to spend more time outdoors. However, many popular outdoor activities come with the risk of head injury. While we can't keep our children in protective bubbles, reinforcing safety measures from day one helps. Michael Egnor, MD, one of only 181 board-certified pediatric neurosurgeons in the country, is the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Stony Brook Children's and a Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. He offers the following tips to parents:

• Make sure your child always wears a helmet that fits properly when riding a bicycle, scooter or skateboard. If the helmet doesn't stay on the head during a fall, it's of no use.
• If children refuse to wear a helmet, show them photos of professional cyclists and skateboarding champions who always wear their helmets.
• When driving with children, make sure their car seats, booster seats and other appropriate child restraints are positioned correctly with the lap and shoulder belt on the strongest parts of the body to better withstand impact.
• Ensure that responsible adults supervise pool parties and other events where swimming and diving are involved.

For more information about brain injury prevention, visit our Ask the Expert online library or call (631) 444-4000.

Because Stony Brook Children's has a Regional Trauma Center, treating the most severe injuries in Suffolk County, we see firsthand the toll accidents take on our community. What we also see is that so many of them could have been prevented.

That's why we recently launched a new safety series, which takes on one core topic each quarter. Our current focus: vehicular safety is always important, but even more so with prom season approaching. What can parents do?

• Get involved and stay involved. Teens need far more supervision than you may think.
• Set a 10 pm curfew. Most fatal crashes occur at night, so this takes the teen off the road during the most dangerous hours.
• Don't give teens carte blanche for use of the car. Teens who have to ask for permission have fewer crashes, better safety records and higher rates of seatbelt use.
• Make safe driving an ongoing dialogue from the time your teen is able to sit beside you in the front seat.
• Model safe driving behaviors.
• Talk with other parents and agree to enforce safe driving guidelines together. 
• Consider a parent/teen driver "contract" to make expectations clear up front.  

Learn more. Our next topic: sun and water safety, followed by sports safety in August.

For more information and vehicular safety resources, call Stony Brook Children's at (631) 444-4000.

These generous friends have chosen to invest in Stony Brook Medicine, making a lasting impact on the region for years to come:

Stony Brook alumna Dawn Okst '91 and her husband David Okst, residents of Port Jefferson, recently presented a major gift to Stony Brook Children's that will be matched by an anonymous donor. "Expanding our children's hospital is a commitment we are making to the community," said Stony Brook Children's Physician-in-Chief, Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD. "It's so gratifying whenever members of our community demonstrate their support for our services."

The Long Island Community Foundation (LICF) donated $25,000 to the Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine (SDM), enabling the School to launch a comprehensive school-based dental health program. To kick off the program, the SDM provided free preventive oral healthcare services to all elementary school students in the Riverhead Central School District. "One of the goals of the School of Dental Medicine is to reach out to every child on Long Island who does not have access to dental healthcare services," said Ray C. Williams, DMD, Dean, School of Dental Medicine.

Stony Brook Medicine provides world-class, compassionate care to patients in more than 50 community-based healthcare settings throughout Suffolk County. Recently our cardiology practice, formerly located in Islandia, moved to a larger, state-of-the-art facility located at 200 Motor Parkway, Hauppauge. The practice provides general and subspecialty cardiology care, including heart failure and cardiomyopathy diagnosis and management; adult echocardiography and stress testing; electrophysiology; and the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of cardiac conditions, including angina, myocardial infarction, hypertension, mitral regurgitation, aortic insufficiency and Marfan syndrome. For more information, call (631) 444-9600.