The clinical value of bacteriological tests determining potential burn wound infection-causing pathogens

Evaluation of microorganisms in burn wound is important not only in determining potential pathogens present, but also allows diagnosing an infection, evaluating possibility of sepsis, and determining the appropriate time for wound tissue reconstruction. However, there are still many discussions about the optimal wound sample taking method to determine wound microflora or infection, and the opinions about sample taking methods for identification of microorganisms are controversial. We have compared three methods (quantitative swab, semi-quantitative swab, biopsy) and determined significant differences. Similar species of bacteria in the same wounds were most frequently identified by biopsy and the semi-quantitative swab method. The general concordance of the results of these methods was very good. There was a medium correlation of the bacterial amount identified by these methods. However, there was the best concordance of the results in presence of a small amount of bacteria in a wound.In presence of clinical wound infection signs, bacteria and larger number of their species were significantly more frequently identified in the biopsy material. The biopsy method significantly more frequently identified a very large amount (>105 CFU) of bacteria. The semi-quantitative swab method is most appropriate to monitor burn wound contamination with bacteria when there are no infection signs. A clinically determined wound infection was best reflected by the results of biopsy