A comparison of oral rinse and imprint sampling techniques for the detection of yeast, coliform and Staphylococcus aureus carriage in the oral cavity.

The sensitivity of the impression culture, the neat rinse culture (NRC) and the concentrated rinse culture (CRC) methods in detecting the oral carriage of yeasts, coliforms and Staphylococcus aureus was estimated in 75 individuals. The recovery of organisms from the imprint cultures of the tongue and the CRC was similar and there was highly significant positive correlation between the two techniques. The CRC was simple to perform, equally sensitive and superior in quantifying yeast, coliform and S. aureus carriage than the imprint culture technique. Hence, it is suggested that the CRC technique be preferentially employed in future investigations to obtain comparable data from different centres.