Background
Environmental surfaces in health care settings are often contaminated by microorganisms,
and biofilms can develop on the surfaces in these settings. Steam vapor technology
is of potential use for disinfection of biofilms on the environmental surfaces.
Methods
We tested the disinfection efficacy of a thermal-accelerated nanocrystal sanitation
(TANCS)-equipped steam vapor technology against biofilms through disinfecting biofilms
developed by 4 bacterial strains—Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus—on an identical test surface (ie, polycarbonate) and biofilms developed by E coli on 4 different test surfaces: polycarbonate, rubber, stainless steel, and ceramics.
Results
Our data show that a 3-second steam treatment rapidly killed each biofilm tested (>99.95
% killing efficiency). For biofilms developed on different surfaces, 3-second steam
treatment achieved 99.95% killing of E coli biofilms developed on different surfaces. Compared with chemical disinfection, steam
treatment for <1 second a similar level of biofilm disinfection as provided by incubation
with 10-ppm sodium hypochlorite (bleach) for 10-20 minutes of contact time.
Conclusions
Our data suggest that the TANCS-equipped steam vapor disinfection is an emerging and
potentially useful technology for disinfecting biofilms on environmental surfaces.
Key Words
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 13, 2012
Footnotes
Partially supported by a grant from Advanced Vapor Technologies , which provided the steam vapor device used in the study but was not involved in the study design, data analysis, or data presentation.
Conflict of interest: None to report.
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
