The antimicrobial capacity of embalming solutions: a comparative study

Balta, Joy Y.; Cryan, John F.; O'Mahony, Siobhain M.

The antimicrobial capacity of embalming solutions: a comparative study

dc.contributor.author	Balta, Joy Y.
dc.contributor.author	Cryan, John F.
dc.contributor.author	O'Mahony, Siobhain M.
dc.date.accessioned	2019-01-09T12:17:27Z
dc.date.available	2019-01-09T12:17:27Z
dc.date.issued	2018-12-29
dc.date.updated	2019-01-09T10:29:19Z
dc.description.abstract	Aims: Infectious health risks are associated with handling human cadavers and to decrease such risks, cadavers are embalmed using different chemicals. The aim of this study is to quantify the amount of microorganisms present in different regions of human cadavers before embalming, after embalming and over a period of eight months. Methods and Results: Human cadavers were embalmed using Thiel, formalin, Genelyn and the Imperial College London soft-preservation (ICL-SP) solution with two cadavers per technique. Sterile swabs were used to collect samples from different regions. Samples were collected every two months. All cadavers had a high number of microbial colonies before embalming. While no colonies were detected on formalin and Genelyn embalmed cadavers post embalming, the number of colonies decreased significantly in Thiel embalmed cadavers and nearly stayed the same in ICL-SP embalmed cadavers. Conclusions: Formalin embalmed cadavers showed the strongest disinfecting abilities followed by Thiel embalmed cadavers, then Genelyn embalmed cadavers and finally by ICL-SP cadavers. Significance and Impact of Study: This study highlights how under researched this area is and the evident variation in the antimicrobial abilities of different embalming solutions on the cadaver as a whole and within different regions of the same cadaver.	en
dc.description.status	Peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Accepted Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	Balta, J. Y., Cryan, J. F. and O'Mahony, S. M. (2018) 'The antimicrobial capacity of embalming solutions: a comparative study', Journal of Applied Microbiology. doi:10.1111/jam.14191	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1111/jam.14191
dc.identifier.issn	1364-5072
dc.identifier.issn	1365-2672
dc.identifier.journaltitle	Journal of Applied Microbiology	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/7274
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	John Wiley & Sons, Inc.	en
dc.relation.uri	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jam.14191
dc.rights	© 2018, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Balta, J. Y., Cryan, J. F. and O'Mahony, S. M. (2018) 'The antimicrobial capacity of embalming solutions: a comparative study', Journal of Applied Microbiology. doi:10.1111/jam.14191, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jam.14191. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.	en
dc.subject	Anatomy	en
dc.subject	Microbiology	en
dc.subject	Education	en
dc.subject	Cadaver	en
dc.subject	Embalming	en
dc.subject	Formaldehyde	en
dc.subject	Thiel	en
dc.subject	Genelyn	en
dc.title	The antimicrobial capacity of embalming solutions: a comparative study	en
dc.type	Article (peer-reviewed)	en