Comparative performance of sponge versus flocked swabs for culture-based and metagenomic detection of microbial contamination in the healthcare environment
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.
Authors
- Laurel Glaser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8463-5107)
- Brendan J. Kelly (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2023-646X)
- Pam Tolomeo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5594-8884)
- Michael David (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1926-7800)
- Matthew J. Ziegler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5723-3927)
- Sean Loughrey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3983-1379)
- Elizabeth Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8209-0609)
- Selamawit Bekele (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6254-9256)
- Ebbing Lautenbach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4772-2409)
Institutions
- California University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology
- Published
- 2025-05-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2025.87
- Primary Topic
- Bacterial Identification and Susceptibility Testing
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00