Looking for assistance to interpret ATP swab results

Hi

We are doing ATP checking in the morning plus conventional micro swabbing after the ATP before production proceed: (M-F monitoring because we wash our equipment everyday)

LIMITS:

ATP 0-100 Passed

ATP 101-150 re-clean machine and pass

ATP 151 above re-clean machine and re-test ATP

TPC <100 pass

Can you help me explain the data below.

AREA    ATP, RLU        TPC, cfu/cm2           Coliform, cfu/cm2

1                250                <10                           <10

2                  9                 TNTC                          TNTC

3                  20                TNTC                         TNTC

*** TPC, Coliform of final product produced are all within specifications

Thanks.

Hi,

You can never correlate the data between ATP vs cfu/plate count, full stop.

Both are different method altogether.

Rgds

Hi Fuse,

IMO you need more data. Difficult to give an opinion based on 1 datum /area.

Do you clean, check ATP, sanitize, check micro. or ??

Were all the cleaned surfaces visually satisfactory ?

Are areas 1,2,3 likely to be similarly "contaminated" ?

ATP and micro.data are 2 ways of evaluating the "cleanliness" of a surface.

As noted in previous post microbiological testing may or may not correlate with ATP readings, since the two techniques measure different parameters. Microbiological methods detect residual micro-organisms (usually bacteria), which should decrease as a result of cleaning/sanitization (C/S). The magnitude of any decrease will depend on the method, materials and chemicals used. ATP bioluminescence is a measure of cleanliness that detects organic soiling (OS) (microbial and non-microbial ATP). (The non-microbial contribution to total ATP is frequently much greater than microbial.)

Despite the above comments, there are some published correlations also.

Verification cleaning efficiency, ATP vs micro..pdf   465.97KB   233 downloads

Ideally one would obviously like to achieve satisfactory results for both.

If all the data is representative of the routine C/S procedure and quantitatively reliable, suggests that -

Area 1 is OS unsatisfactory  but micro.satisfactory (with respect to TPC/coliform)

Areas 2,3 are OS satisfactory but micro. unsatisfactory (with respect to TPC/coliform) (how much unsatisfactory depends on the quant. meaning of TNTC)

(I daresay you knew that already).

i suggest you should establish a baseline for both test procedures/sampling points/routine cleaning-sanitizing process. I think this is recommended by ATP unit suppliers.

Hi Fuse,

 

IMO you need more data. Difficult to give an opinion based on 1 datum /area.  ----

      In  a week time, data will show up/down trend on tpc results

Do you clean, check ATP, sanitize, check micro. or ??

      Prior to production we will sanitize the machine and will do atp check and conventional swabbing

      after production finish our cleaning procedure is as follow:

      --rinse of the seasoning from the machine using hot water

      --use an alkaline chlorinated detergent for foaming and leave it for approx 10 mins

     -- rinsing the machine using normal water and afterwards put sanitizer

 

 

Were all the cleaned surfaces visually satisfactory ? yes

 

Are areas 1,2,3 likely to be similarly "contaminated" ?  NO

 

ATP and micro.data are 2 ways of evaluating the "cleanliness" of a surface.

 

As noted in previous post microbiological testing may or may not correlate with ATP readings, since the two techniques measure different parameters. Microbiological methods detect residual micro-organisms (usually bacteria), which should decrease as a result of cleaning/sanitization (C/S). The magnitude of any decrease will depend on the method, materials and chemicals used. ATP bioluminescence is a measure of cleanliness that detects organic soiling (OS) (microbial and non-microbial ATP). (The non-microbial contribution to total ATP is frequently much greater than microbial.)

Despite the above comments, there are some published correlations also.

 

Verification cleaning efficiency, ATP vs micro..pdf

 

Ideally one would obviously like to achieve satisfactory results for both.

 

If all the data is representative of the routine C/S procedure and quantitatively reliable, suggests that -

 

Area 1 is OS unsatisfactory  but micro.satisfactory (with respect to TPC/coliform)

Areas 2,3 are OS satisfactory but micro. unsatisfactory (with respect to TPC/coliform) (how much unsatisfactory depends on the quant. meaning of TNTC)

 

(I daresay you knew that already).

 

i suggest you should establish a baseline for both test procedures/sampling points/routine cleaning-sanitizing process. I think this is recommended by ATP unit suppliers.

 

 

Need to read more about this matter.  thanks for the info.

 

As a practical matter, I've found that many data points are needed for ATP analysis as the test is not as precise as we would like it to be.  Use the same machine, same program, same sites over time to get data you can analyze.

Hi Fuse,

Thks for comments.

Here are some procedures /link for (1) setting baselines, (2) a (random) couple of  Correlation studies (3) an investigation of some possible variables  which somewhat supports RMAV's post.

(1)

bas1 - hygiena atp thresholds.pdf   330.85KB   102 downloads

bas2 - neogen faq.pdf   383.85KB   72 downloads

bas3 - Scigiene ATP Monitoring.pdf   1.61MB   68 downloads

http://www.testkitcentral.com/faq.html

(2)

Correlation example ATP-micro.2014.pdf   314.48KB   77 downloads

Correlation example2 ATP-micro.2014.pdf   699.1KB   64 downloads

(3)

Cleanliness Evaluation,2002, ATP compared to Micro.data.pdf   407.32KB   101 downloads

Does anyone have updated info on this?