Figure 7.
Upper and lower respiratory plaque morphology within individuals. For patients with both nasal and tracheal aspirates acquired on the day of enrollment (n = 7), in vitro viral plaque populations grew with similar morphologies, (a) plaque size (b) percent capped, and produced similar ratios of polymerase cain reaction-measured viral load (plaque forming unit equivalents (PFUe)) and quantitative culture (infectious) viral load (plaque forming unit (PFU)) (c) PFUe/PFU even though secretions were retrieved from different anatomical locations. Each patient represents one data point. Plaque morphologies were adjudicated by investigators who were masked with respect to source of specimen, clinical disease severity, respiratory syncytial virus subgroup, or any patient characteristics.