Cross contamination of hospital ophthalmic slit lamps by ocular bacteria

Graham, Joanna E.; Moore, Jonathan E.; Moore, John E.; McClurg, R.B.; Moore, Tara

doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2007.09.014

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although relations between shared optical devices and eye infections have long been suspected (Olcerst, 1987), knowledge about the bacterial contamination of slit lamps is scarce. Previous cultivation-based examinations, (Graham et al, 2008;Sobolewska et al, 2018) of slit lamps proved the presence of human skin bacteria, however with max. amounts of 3 CFU/24 cm 2 at a relatively low concentration, which is at least 2 to 3 log scales less, than the bacterial load on similar devices, such as spectacles (Fritz et al, 2018) and microscope oculars (Olcerst, 1987;Fritz et al, 2020b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Slit lamps count among the most important and most often used ophthalmological devices, demanding close contact between examiner, many different patients and device surfaces. Previous studies revealed their relevant surfaces to be contaminated with bacteria, mostly coagulase-negative staphylococci, micrococci, bacilli and also Staphylococcus aureus ( Graham et al., 2008 ; Sobolewska et al., 2018 ). However, these examinations were performed with cultivation-dependent techniques, which provide only a very limited overview on the present microbiota, as the cultivation conditions for most microorganisms are still unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Comprehensive Compositional Analysis of the Slit Lamp Bacteriota

Fritz

Paschko

Young

et al. 2021

Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Slit lamps are routinely used to examine large numbers of patients every day due to high throughput. Previous, cultivation-based results suggested slit lamps to be contaminated with bacteria, mostly coagulase-negative staphylococci, followed by micrococci, bacilli, but also Staphylococcus aureus. Our study aimed at obtaining a much more comprehensive, cultivation-independent view of the slit lamp bacteriota and its hygienic relevance, as regularly touched surfaces usually represent fomites, particularly if used by different persons. We performed extensive 16S rRNA gene sequencing to analyse the bacteriota, of 46 slit lamps from two tertiary care centers at two sampling sites, respectively. 82 samples yielded enough sequences for downstream analyses and revealed contamination with bacteria of mostly human skin, mucosa and probably eye origin, predominantly cutibacteria, staphylococci and corynebacteria. The taxonomic assignment of 3369 ASVs (amplicon sequence variants) revealed 19 bacterial phyla and 468 genera across all samples. As antibiotic resistances are of major concern, we screened all samples for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) using qPCR, however, no signals above the detection limit were detected. Our study provides first comprehensive insight into the slit lamp microbiota. It underlines that slit lamps carry a highly diverse, skin-like bacterial microbiota and that thorough cleaning and disinfection after use is highly recommendable to prevent eye and skin infections.

show abstract