Table 1.

Efficacy of Rodac plates for recovering C. difficile spores dried onto surfaces.

	Recovery Log10 cfu/site (± std)*	% recovery (+ std)
1. Plastic Petri dish	2.041 (0.125)	80.81 (4.96)
2. Tin foil	2.186 (0.015)	86.6 (0.61)
3. Toilet seat	2.162 (0.008)	85.7 (3.03)

* The surface area inoculated was equivalent to the surface area sampled when using the Rodac plate. All experiments were performed in triplicate. The average inoculum per surface area inoculated (i.e per site) was Log₁₀ 2.524 ± 0.009 cfu/site. A range of surface inoculation levels were evaluated, but higher inoculum (e.g. ≥ 10³ cfu/site) of C. difficile spores produced growth that was too numerous to count when sampled using Rodac plates.