[Chronic interstitial nephritis in cattle with cardiomyopathy].

We tried to characterize the chronic interstitial nephritis as it occurs in bovine cardiomyopathy (CMP). For that reason conventional analysis methods were applied to urine of healthy and CMP-diseased cattle. With all the sick animals used for this study a nephritis of the mentioned type was diagnosed pathologically. By discriminant analysis of our data we were able to show, that the chronic interstitial nephritis due to CMP was best described by the variables protein (precipitation by heat), renal epithelial cells and leukocytes. In 73% of all the affected cattle one or more variables were changed pathologically to a minor to moderate degree. In the remaining 27% they were within the normal range. A possible microhematuria was secondary. Using identification analysis all the healthy animals and 69% of the diseased ones were made out correctly. As a consequence of this study we conclude, that further methods are necessary in order to recognize the different forms of nephritis more reliably.