Figure 1.

Tissue samples from our patient contained abundant dystrophic calcifications. The cloudy fluid obtained from the aortic valve was sent to microbiology. Panel A shows a representative example of the abundant calcium phosphate crystals that were observed in the smear made from this specimen. Panel B is a representative image from the atrophic thymus tissue, which showed focal areas of coagulative and fat necrosis, and did not contain any acute inflammation or other evidence of infection. Frequent calcium phosphate crystals were observed, and when the necrotic areas were polarised abundant calcium oxalate crystals were also present. The native aortic valve connective tissue did not show any evidence of infection, however also contained abundant calcifications (data not shown).