A new technique for quantitative bacterial assessment on burn wounds by modified dermabrasion

Bacterial colonization and invasive bacterial infection is still one of the major problems in the treatment of burn victims. The standard procedures of bacterial monitoring of the burn would are i) swab-culture which is non-invasive but detects bacteria at the very surface and ii) biopsy-culture which gives a more complete view but has the disadvantage of being invasive. Therefore we developed a new technique for examination of microbial colonization of the wound surface. Dermabrasion of the upper layers of the wound was performed using a small rotating carbon-steel disc of defined roughness. The tissue samples obtained were analysed for bacterial growth in different culture media. Results were qualitatively and quantitatively compared with those of standard techniques performed in parallel. Our results show that this new technique is superior to the swab culture in identifying different bacterial species. The results can be compared with the biopsy technique, but has the advantage of being less invasive.