Conclusions From The 11th Proficiency Test Of Vdb For Total Spore Analysis

At the 21st "Pilztagung" a proficiency test was carried out on the method of total spore analysis in an underground car garage. The total spore concentration in the garage was over 20,000 spores/m(3). The frequency of the spore types Cladosporium (median approx. 5,600 spores/m(3)) and Aspergillus/Penicillium (median approx. 11,600 spores/m(3)) corresponded to a Gaussian distribution. Airborne particles with a significantly lower concentration, e. g. mycelium fragments (median approx. 500 fragments/m(3)) had a Poisson rather than a Gaussian distribution. Under the selected conditions, the sampling positions of the participants in the test area had no major influence on the results and even the spore concentrations of three successively collected samples had no significant difference. Therefore, stable measurement conditions during the study can be assumed. In this test, successful participation was based on the transmission of the basic data next to the properly calculated concentrations, and in addition, the concentration of normally distributed spores had to lie within a limit of +/- 50% of the median of all laboratories. Based on the number of submitted results 86% of the participants fulfilled the set requirements.