title: Air dispersed essential oils combined with standard sanitization procedures for environmental microbiota control in nosocomial hospitalization rooms.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Environmental bacterial contaminant microorganisms are an ongoing problem in hospitals. Essential oil vapours (EO) may help reducing this type of contamination. Aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of nebulized selected essential oils (EO) in reducing the microbial contamination in residential health care house rooms.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was carried out in a two-story 112-bed tertiary care structure (approximately 1060 m(2)). Contamination in rooms and corridors was monitored for a total of n=5 months, including a starting baseline sampling and one end-study point, and without combined treatment (standard sanitization alone). Contact slides were collected for microbiological analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reductions in both bacterial and fungal contamination were observed between rooms cleaned using standard sanitization alone or in combination with essential oils nebulization (average 90% decrease for total count, P<0.01; 90% for yeasts and molds, P<0.05). Decreases of antibiotic (70%), mucolytic (100%), bronchodilators (100%), and steroidal (67%) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (33%) prescriptions were observed, with no adverse effects on patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The selected EO composition is effective in reducing both the environmental microbial contamination and pharmaceutical drugs consumption in a nosocomial health care house. This study demonstrates that aerial EO diffusion combined with standard sanitization procedures, has great potential to reduce the microbial contamination in critical hospital environments such as hospitalization rooms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gelmini
authors.affiliation: Fondazione "Don Ambrogio Cacciamatta", Iseo, Italy.
authors.forename: Luciano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Belotti
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vecchi
authors.affiliation: Functional Point S.r.l., Laboratorio di Microbiologia e Virologia, Bergamo, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Testa
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Milan, Italy. Electronic address: giangiacomo.beretta@unimi.it.
authors.forename: Giangiacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Beretta
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000517:prevention & control; D004202:Disinfectants / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D004203:Disinfection / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D005658:Fungi / Q000187:drug effects; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D009330:Nebulizers and Vaporizers; D009822:Oils, Volatile / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D010362:Patients' Rooms
chemical_list: D004202:Disinfectants; D009822:Oils, Volatile
keywords: Antimicrobial; Disinfection; Environmental; Essential oils; Hospital