Contaminated aerosol recovery from pulmonary function testing equipment

Clinically, the spread of infectious agents between subjects undergoing spirometry is quite uncommon. There is almost no documentation in the medical literature on this subject. We studied the retrieval of nonpathogenic Escherichia coli after aerosolizing organisms into standard pulmonary function tubing of a type that is frequently used by volume-sensing spirometers. The arrival of the aerosol at the distal end of the tubing was documented by culture. After delays of 0, 1, 5, and 10 min, respectively, air was forcibly withdrawn from the proximal end of the tubing through a special petri plate assembly. The plates were cultured and the colonies were counted. Immediately after insufflation of organisms, air withdrawn from the proximal tubing had counts similar to the air sampled at the distal end. After a 1-min delay, the proximal samples contained only rare organisms. No organisms were recovered from proximal air samples after a delay of 5 or 10 min after insufflation of organisms. The absence of detectable aerosolized E. coli after delays of 5 and 10 min after insufflation of organisms into spirometry tubing supports the hypothesis that a significant transfer of aerosolized organisms does not occur during routine pulmonary function testing as long as an interval of 5 min or more is allowed between tests.