BACKGROUND Monitoring the efficiency of hand washing typically relies on determining the presence or absence of targeted organisms on the hands, not necessarily determining if the method is working. The results focus on the organism studied and do not give a true reflection of the efficiency of the hygiene intervention. To obtain a better picture, this study tested flow cytometry with SYBR® Green I to quantify bacterial populations on the hands of participants in a healthcare training clinic at a University in South Africa. METHODS Participants "washed" both hands in a buffer solution in a sterile bag, and the total and viable bacterial populations numbers were determined using flow cytometry and compared with standard culture-based methods, testing for total coliforms, E. coli and heterotrophic organisms (IDEXX Colilert®-18 Quanti-Trays™ and SimPlates®) and fastidious organisms with hemolytic activity (Blood Agar). RESULTS Compared to the culture-based method, flow cytometry rapidly distinguished total, viable, and dead bacterial populations in all samples. As expected, the culture-based methods gave lower bacterial counts and were limited by the detection limit of each test, requiring further testing with additional costs. Although the exact bacterial species in the population could not be identified with flow cytometry, viable counts from flow cytometric analysis were two times more precise than the data obtained with any of the culture-based methods tested. CONCLUSIONS Flow cytometry was found to be suitable for immediate, accurate, and automatic detection of bacteria, and because it describes the viable bacterial population, it is ideal to monitor hand hygiene interventions. © 2019 International Clinical Cytometry Society.

中文翻译：

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使用流式细胞仪和SYBR®Green I快速定量人类手上的全部细菌总数。

背景技术监测洗手的效率通常取决于确定手上是否存在目标生物，而不必确定该方法是否有效。结果集中在研究的生物体上，并未真正反映出卫生干预措施的效率。为了获得更好的图像，本研究测试了SYBR®Green I的流式细胞仪，以量化南非大学医疗培训诊所参与者手上的细菌种群。方法参与者在无菌袋中的缓冲溶液中“洗手”，然后使用流式细胞仪测定细菌总数和存活细菌数，并与基于标准培养物的方法进行比较，以检测大肠杆菌的总数。大肠杆菌和异养生物（IDEXXColilert®-18Quanti-Trays™和SimPlates®）和具有溶血活性的挑剔生物（琼脂）。结果与基于培养的方法相比，流式细胞仪可快速区分所有样品中的总细菌，存活细菌和死亡细菌。如预期的那样，基于培养物的方法产生的细菌数较少，并且受到每种检测方法的检出限的限制，因此需要进一步检测，但需要额外的费用。尽管无法通过流式细胞仪识别出种群中确切的细菌种类，但流式细胞仪分析得出的可行计数比使用任何基于培养物的测试方法获得的数据精确两倍。结论发现流式细胞仪适用于细菌的即时，准确和自动检测，并且由于它描述了可行的细菌种群，因此是监测手部卫生干预措施的理想之选。©2019国际临床细胞计量学会。