ABSTRACT
Aim and Introduction: Rosa damascena is one of the most well-known species of the Rosaceae family and is widely used in the food and perfume industry. Rose hydrosol is a product which is produced by distillation of rose petals. There is very little research about the antimicrobial effect of rose hydrosol. In this study, we aimed to investigate the antibacterial effect of Rosa damascena hydrosol in vivo. Method: 45 adult volunteers who were not healthcare workers were included in this study. Exclusion criteria included existing skin disorders or lacerations, pregnancy, presence of nail polish, recent handwashing or use of antiseptic lotion/soap in the last week, and antibiotic use in the last 3 months. At baseline, each subject was asked to rub the fingertips of the dominant hand on a sheep-blood agar plate. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups: one group rubbed their hands with 3 mL of alcohol-based hand antiseptic and the other group with 3 mL of rose hydrosol. Following sample collection, the subjects were asked to rub their hands according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) "How to Hand Rub" technique. After the hand-rubbing sequence, the hands were allowed to air-dry and fingertip sampling was performed. Culture plates were evaluated by a microbiologist blinded to group assignment. Rose hydrosol was analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Results: The main components of rose hydrosol are phenyl ethyl alcohol, beta-citronellol and geraniol. Of the total of 45 participants, 23 were included in rose hydrosol group and 22 in the alcohol-based hand-rub group. The colony counts decreased significantly in the alcohol-based solution group after hand-rubbing, whereas there was no significant reduction in the rose hydrosol group. Conclusion: A number of studies have shown good antimicrobial activity in rose products, especially in rose oil, but we found no antibacterial effect of rose hydrosol after hand-rubbing. However, it must be borne in mind that the amount and types of rose hydrosol components are highly influenced by the given agro-meteorological conditions and technological production methods.
ABSTRACT
The production of one or more autoantibodies in the majority of rheumatic diseases is a common clinical finding. Indirect immunofluorescent antibody (IFA) test is the former and widely used method in detecting autoantibodies. Recently, commercial enzyme immunoassays (EIA) and immunoblot (IB) assays are available for the routine laboratories. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacies of these methods in 121 sera samples which were collected from 46 male and 75 female patients, of whom antinuclear antibody (ANA) testing were requested by clinicians. All the samples were simultaneously studied by IFA with HEp-2 and Crithidia lucillae cells, and by two different commercial kits of EIA and IB, and the results were evaluated. When IFA is accepted as reference method, the sensitivities and specificities of the other methods were found as follows, respectively; 82-100% and 84-100% for ANA-EIA, 48-54% and 98-100% for ANA-IB, 66-100% and 97-98% for anti-dsDNA-EIA, and 50-66% and 86-100% for anti-dsDNA-IB. The agreement rates of ANA-EIA, ANA-IB, anti-dsDNA-EIA and anti-dsDNA-IB methods with IFA were detected as 82-90%, 74%, 96-97%, and 84-98%, respectively. As a result, it may be concluded that IFA test should be used as a primarily test for the detection of ANA and anti-dsDNA autoantibodies, while EIA and IB methods are useful for antigen differentiation and confirmation of the results.
