Checchi Vittorio, Montevecchi Marco, Valeriani Leoluca, Checchi Luigi
Unit of Dentistry and Oral-Maxillo-Facial Surgery, Department of Surgery, Medicine, Dentistry and Morphological Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 41125 Modena, Italy.
Unit of Dentistry, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40100 Bologna, Italy.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Dec 9;15(24):8790. doi: 10.3390/ma15248790.
The microbial contamination of a respirator can be evaluated through a count of the number of bacteria living on a non-sterilized surface (bioburden). This preliminary study investigated the external contamination of two different FFP2s over time by studying the bioburden values in increasing exposure times.
FFP2 respirators of two different brands were used during routine clinical settings and examined through the bioburden test; for each brand, three devices were tested at 8, 16, and 30 h.
No significant differences were observed between mask brands ( = 0.113). There were only significant CFU differences between each mask and its control ( = 0.027 and = 0.004).
Both brands of respirators were found to be contaminated and this contamination increased with the increase in exposure time. Further studies are needed to investigate the exact amount of contamination that could be considered acceptable before discarding each used mask.
呼吸器的微生物污染可通过对未灭菌表面上存活细菌数量（生物负荷）的计数来评估。这项初步研究通过研究不同暴露时间下的生物负荷值，调查了两种不同的FFP2随时间的外部污染情况。
在常规临床环境中使用两种不同品牌的FFP2呼吸器，并通过生物负荷测试进行检查；对于每个品牌，在8、16和30小时时测试三个设备。
在口罩品牌之间未观察到显著差异（P = 0.113）。每个口罩与其对照之间仅存在显著的菌落形成单位差异（P = 0.027和P = 0.004）。
发现两个品牌的呼吸器均被污染，并且这种污染随着暴露时间的增加而增加。需要进一步研究以调查在丢弃每个使用过的口罩之前可被认为可接受的确切污染量。
