Microbiologic sampling handling

Production equipment that cannot be sterilized must be sanitized and disinfected by an appropriate method. This can be done by use of biocides like alcohols (70%), hydrogen peroxide, or formaldehyde-based chemicals or a combination of these. These can either be used for surface disinfections by wiping or spraying or even better by use of gas or dry fog systems for application of the disinfectants. The effect of cleaning and sanitation should be monitored. Microbiological media contact plates can be used to test critical surfaces, as inside the hot cells or glove boxes. The test samples must then be handled and monitored as radioactive contaminated units. 

Every brain biopsy specimen should be handled in such a way that if inflammation is found at surgery, it will be possible to culture the tissue for bacteria, mycobacteria, and fungi and to use special stains, immunostain-ing techniques, and electron microscopy. This author s experience has been that for organisms that grow in vitro, microbiologic culture is preferable to histochemi-cal stains, IHC, or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay if sampling of the lesion is uniform. Prior antibiotic treatment or non-uniform sampling of focal infection affects individual cases. 

An important requirement for proper microbiological work is the avoidance of secondary infections both in the handling of the sample material prior to actual analysis and in the analysis itself. 

To Microbiology Laboratory staff at Universidad de Caldas for handling blood samples Wenwen Yu and Body Composition Unit staff at New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center, St. Luke s-Roosevelt Hospital for D2O analysis and all volunteers for their cooperation. 

Always use protective gloves when handling microbiological standards and samples. 

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