Comparative performance of sponge versus flocked swabs for culture-based and metagenomic detection of microbial contamination in the healthcare environment

作者：Matthew J. Ziegler, Sean Loughrey, Selamawit Bekele, Elizabeth Huang, Pam Tolomeo, Michael David, Ebbing Lautenbach, Laurel Glaser, Brendan J. Kelly · 发表于：Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1017/ice.2025.87 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Infection Control in Healthcare、Fecal contamination and water quality、Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria

BACKGROUND: Identifying optimal methods for sampling surfaces in the healthcare environment is critical for future research requiring the identification of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) on surfaces. METHODS: We compared 2 swabbing methods, use of a flocked swab versus a sponge-stick, for recovery of MDROs by both culture and recovery of bacterial DNA via quantitative 16S polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This comparison was conducted by assessing swab performance in a longitudinal survey of MDRO contamination in hospital rooms. Additionally, a laboratory-prepared surface was also used to compare the recovery of each swab type with a matching surface area. RESULTS: from laboratory-prepared surfaces, although the performance of flocked swabs improved when premoistened. In contrast, recovery of bacterial DNA via quantitative 16S PCR was greater with flocked swabs by an average of 3 log copies per specimen. CONCLUSIONS: The optimal swabbing method of environmental surfaces differs by method of analysis. Sponge-sticks were superior to flocked swabs for culture-based detection of bacteria but inferior for recovery of bacterial DNA.