Is it possible to sanitize athletes’ shoes?

Context: Footwear should be designed to avoid trauma and injury to the skin of the feet that can favor bacterial and fungal infections. Procedures and substances for sanitizing the interior of shoes are uncommon but are important aspects of primary prevention against foot infections and unpleasant odor. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a sanitizing technique for reducing bacterial and fungal contamination of footwear. Design: Crossover study. Setting: Mens Sana basketball team. Patients or Other Participants: Twenty-seven male athletes and 4 coaches (62 shoes). Intervention(s): The experimental protocol required a first sample (swab), 1/shoe, at time 0 from inside the shoes of allathletes before the sanitizing technique began and a second sample at time 1, after about 4 weeks, April 2012 to May 2012, of daily use of the sanitizing technique. Main Outcome Measure(s): The differences before and after use of the sanitizing technique for total bacterial count at 368C and 228C for Staphylococcus spp, yeasts, molds, Enterococcus spp, Pseudomonas spp, Escherichia coli, and total coliform bacteria were evaluated. Results: Before use of the sanitizing technique, the total bacterial counts at 368C and 228C and for Staphylococcus sppwere greater by a factor of 5.8 (95% confidence interval [CI] ¼3.42, 9.84), 5.84 (95% CI¼ 3.45, 9.78), and 4.78 (95% CI¼ 2.84,8.03), respectively. All the other comparisons showed a reduction in microbial loads, whereas E coli and coliforms wereno longer detected. No statistically significant decrease inyeasts (P ¼ .0841) or molds (P ¼ .6913) was recorded probably because of low contamination. Conclusions: The sanitizing technique significantly reduced the bacterial presence in athletes’ shoes. Key Words: athlete’s foot, foot infections, bacterial infections, fungal infections, basketball, hygiene