Distinctive bacteria-binding property of cloth materials.
BACKGROUND
Nosocomial infections may be caused by pathogens that are transmitted from the hands or clothes of hospital personnel. Handwashing has been evaluated as effective against the spread of pathogens, but transmission through clothes has been little investigated. Evaluation of bacterial adherence to clothes is difficult because of the nonuniform amount of water absorbance by cloth. Therefore, we measured binding of bacteria to cloth fibers made of cotton, nylon, polyester, acrylic, or sheep's wool and tried to characterize bacterial binding to cloth.


METHODS
We chose to study the opportunistic pathogens Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Cloth fibers were incubated with bacterial suspensions in silicone-coated tubes. We evaluated the reduction of numbers of bacteria in solutions incubated with the fibers and calculated binding ratios of bacteria to the fibers.


RESULTS
Polyester or acrylic fibers bound S aureus and P aeruginosa at high ratios (>80%), but cotton fibers bound them at low ratios (<10%). Nylon fibers bound S aureus at low ratios, but P aeruginosa at intermediate ratios.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggested that polyester, acrylic, or wool clothes could be good carriers of S aureus and P aeruginosa and thus should be covered with cotton clothes to minimize the spread of the pathogens.
Takashima
Mami
M
Department of Health Promotion Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 1-7 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Shirai
Fumie
F
Sageshima
Makiko
M
Ikeda
Nanae
N
Okamoto
Yutaka
Y
Dohi
Yoshitane
Y
D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003020:Clothing; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000737:chemistry*; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000737:chemistry*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013784:Textiles / Q000382:microbiology*