This study carried out a systematic quantitative analysis of published literature on the efficacy of essential oils (EOs) as sanitizers in fresh leafy vegetables (FLVs). Efficacy of EO was measured by determining if their application could cause a reduction of microbial population in FLV, as well as by identifying experimental factors that might affect the achieved reduction levels. Data on efficacy of EO to reduce the microbial population and experimental conditions were collected from selected studies and compiled for a distribution and relational analysis. Reduction of an artificial inoculum and/or natural microbiota of FLV caused by 14 different EO were measured in 404 (73.8%) and 143 (26.2%) experiments, respectively. Results of quantitative analysis showed that EO are consistently effective to reduce microbial population in FLV either when the target microorganisms are forming an artificial inoculum or the natural microbiota, being overall similarly effective to or more effective than substances used ordinarily as sanitizers. EO were more effective to reduce the population of microorganisms forming an artificial inoculum than the natural microbiota. EO concentration and inoculum size had no significant effect on achieved reductions. Duration of sanitization treatment with EO had significant effect on achieved reductions and highest reductions were found when the sanitization time was >3 min. Although with the inherent variability in experimental designs found in available literature, the results of this quantitative analysis provide strong evidence that EO are promising candidates for use in strategies to sanitize FLV.

这项研究对出版的文献进行了系统的定量分析，这些文献涉及精油（EOs）作为新鲜叶菜类蔬菜（FLVs）中的消毒剂的功效。通过确定EO的应用是否会导致FLV中微生物种群的减少，以及确定可能影响所达到的减少水平的实验因素，来衡量EO的效力。从选定的研究中收集了有关EO减少微生物种群和实验条件的功效的数据，并进行了分布和相关分析。分别在404（73.8％）和143（26.2％）个实验中测量了由14种不同的EO引起的FLV人工接种菌和/或天然菌群的减少。定量分析的结果表明，当目标微生物形成人工接种物或天然微生物群时，EO始终有效地减少FLV中的微生物种群，总体上与通常用作消毒剂的物质相似或更有效。EO比天然菌群在减少形成人工接种物的微生物种群方面更为有效。EO浓度和接种量对减少量没有明显影响。EO消毒处理的持续时间对减少量有显着影响，当消毒时间> 3分钟时，减少量最大。尽管现有文献中的实验设计具有固有的可变性，