Abstract Background This study aimed to evaluate the effects of different pretreatment methods on microbial yield from infectious tissues. Methods Strains Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Escherichia coli (EC) and Candida albicans (CA) were used construct single-surface, full-surface, internal infection models in sterile pork tissue. Manual milling (MM), mechanical homogenization (MH), sonificated (...