Infected surface wound: an experimental model and a method for the quantitation of bacteria in infected tissues.

  • 1 March 1972
    • journal article
    • Vol. 23  (3) , 509-14
Abstract
Methods for the quantitation of bacteria in infected tissues must be rigidly standardized to insure uniformity of results. In this communication we report on a laboratory animal model for the study of surface wound infection and the development of a standardized method for the quantitative estimation of bacteria in infected surface wound tissue by mechanical tissue homogenization and serial dilution. Parallel comparative studies demonstrated that a moist-swab sampling procedure detected only 10% of the bacteria recoverable by a surface-wash procedure. Either tissue homogenization or surface-wash procedures recovered significantly more bacteria from contaminated surface wounds than were obtained by surface-swab sampling techniques.