The indoor environment is an important source of exposure to microbial communities
that may deleteriously affect human respiratory health. Recent studies demonstrated that the
microbial community structure can be altered by the use of household products such as
antimicrobial agents. Hence, in order to understand the modulation of the indoor microbiome
by household products and their joint effect in the respiratory status of COPD patients we
evaluated the levels of antimicrobials agents in dust samples and matched urine samples
from patients with COPD. Overall, the concentrations in dust samples are one to two orders
of magnitude higher that the concentrations in human urine. Triclosan was detected in all the
dust samples, triclocarban was detected in 82% of the dust samples and parabens in 90% to
100% of the samples. In urine samples, triclosan was detected in 56% of the samples,
triclocarban was always bellow detection limit (0.25 ng/mL) and parabens detection
frequency varied widely (23-84%). Interestingly, the highest level reported in dust for
triclosan (1200 ng/g) corresponded to the house of the patient with the highest triclosan
concentration in urine (140 ng/mL) and at that house high levels of antibiotic resistant
bacteria were found. Such results suggest that the use of antimicrobials might be associated
with the presence of resistant bacteria and thus deserve to be further studied.publishe
