Orihuela said he is working to change protocols to make autopsies more routine for patients who die of pneumonia—together with influenza, the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For this research, his group obtained only nine samples from a Spanish hospital, two of which showed microlesions; further confirmation is needed.
Still, he said: “This is sort of a big deal. It’s a brand new disease pathology for a very old bug.”
A.O. Brown et al., “Streptococcus pneumoniae translocates into the myocardium and forms unique microlesions that disrupt cardiac function,” PLOS Pathogens, doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004383, 2014.