Pneumonia's Damage to a Mouse Heart (IMAGE)
Caption
The long-observed association between pneumonia and heart failure now has more physical evidence, thanks to research in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The researchers found proof that Streptococcus pneumoniae, the leading cause of community-acquired pneumonia, actually physically damages the heart. The bacterium leaves tiny lesions that researchers detected in mouse, rhesus macaque and human autopsy tissue samples. This image from a mouse heart shows a cardiac micro-lesion, seen at right, next to a blood vessel, left.
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Image courtesy of Dr. Carlos Orihuela, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio
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