Comparison of bactericidal effects of commonly used antiseptics against pathogens causing nosocomial infections. Part...

Opportunistic infections caused by gram-negative rods (GNR), conventionally regarded as organisms with low or no pathogenicity, and intractable infections caused by various resistant organisms pose a great problem now. In view of this, we determined the bactericidal effects of 5 commonly used disinfectants using as the test strains Xanthomonas maltophilia and Serratia marcescens, chosen among other GNR since they often cause nosocomial infections. Regarding the bactericidal activities against X. maltophilia and S. marcescens, both sensitive strains and resistant strains were killed within 20 s of exposure to povidone-iodine and sodium hypochlorite. With chlorhexidine, 1 strain each of both species was not killed within 10 min of exposure at a concentration of 0.2%. Both sensitive strains and resistant strains of X. maltophilia were killed within 20 s of exposure to benzalkonium at 0.02%, while a concentration of 0.1% was required for benzalkonium to kill S. marcescens within 20 s. With Tego-51, both sensitive strains and resistant strains of X. maltophilia were killed within 20 s at 0.02%, while 1 strain of S. marcescens was not killed within 20 s at a concentration of 0.1%. In the use of disinfectants, comparative bactericidal effects of various disinfectants against clinical isolates should be taken into consideration.