Safety of non-woven polypropylene surgical adhesive drapes to prevent wound infection

Methods Six brands of disposable non-woven polypropylene drapes were tested. A latex glove was used as a negative control and a woven cotton drape was used as a positive control. For each drape, a rodac plate was inoculated with 10 colony-forming units / ml of Staphylococcus aureus ATCC strain 6538 and incubated at 37°C for 24 h to obtain confluent growth. Thereafter, each drape was placed between the incubated rodac plate and an inverted rodac plate with a weight of 400 gram placed thereon for 30 minutes. Subsequently, the inverted rodac plate was incubated for 24 h at 37°C and inspected for growth of S. aureus.