Year: 2015 | Month: April | Volume 5 | Issue 1
Postpartum endometritis in dairy cows: current status of diagnosis, therapy and prevention
Abstract:
Clinical (CE) and subclinical endometritis (SCE) occur a few or several weeks postpartum in dairy cows. Immunosuppression, microbial proliferation and disruption of endometrial lining of the uterus are risk for the development of metritis which can be associated with increased likelihood of development of endometritis. Diagnostic approaches for CE have utilized the vaginoscopic presence of pus in the vaginal lumen as the common diagnostic criterion although currently Metricheck and ultrasonography are preferred procedures. The identification of pathologic numbers of microbes in the uterus appears difficult unless the samples are collected using specialized instruments. Inflammatory changes in the endometrium (of CE affected cows) can be identified with high accuracy in histologic sections of the endometrial biopsy specimens or hysteroscopy however, such approaches are limited to specialized cases only. Cows with SCE evidence a cervico-vaginal discharge without pathogenomic properties (pus and or altered consistency) and thus the diagnosis of SCE continues to be presumptive in cows with lowered fertility. Ultrasonography and uterine cytology on swabs or fluids collected from uterus have been considered accurate for the diagnosis of SCE.
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