Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Biology of Large Animals, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Salisburylaan 133, Merelbeke B-9820, Belgium.
Vet Rec. 2013 Mar 2;172(9):237. doi: 10.1136/vr.101236. Epub 2013 Jan 29.
Enterotoxaemia is an important cause of sudden death in veal calves. This study aimed to evaluate intestinal Clostridium perfringens counts as a diagnostic tool for enterotoxaemia. Field necropsies were conducted on 48 sudden death cases in Belgian Blue veal farms. In 31/48 suddenly deceased calves, the diagnosis of enterotoxaemia was made based on haemorrhagic lesions in the small intestines, while in seven of these cases, no clear-cut diagnosis could be made based on macroscopic appearance of the gut. In the 10 remaining calves, a definitive cause of death other than enterotoxaemia could be identified. Samples of the intestinal content were taken for quantification of C perfringens. After matching cases and controls for diet, and the interval between death and sampling, no significant differences could be detected between the mean C perfringens counts of the small intestines in enterotoxaemia cases and counts in the matching segments in the control group. These results indicate that intestinal C perfringens counts cannot be advised as a discriminative postmortem diagnostic tool for enterotoxaemia in veal calves, not even when sampled within three hours after death.
肠毒血症是犊牛猝死的一个重要原因。本研究旨在评估肠道产气荚膜梭菌计数作为肠毒血症的诊断工具。对比利时蓝牛肉牛场的 48 例猝死病例进行了现场剖检。在 48 例突然死亡的小牛中，31 例根据小肠出血性病变诊断为肠毒血症，而在其中 7 例，根据肠道的肉眼外观不能明确诊断。在其余 10 例小牛中，确定了除肠毒血症以外的明确死因。采集肠道内容物样本，定量检测产气荚膜梭菌。在匹配病例和对照组的饮食和死亡与采样之间的时间间隔后，肠毒血症病例的小肠中产气荚膜梭菌的平均计数与对照组中匹配段的计数之间没有发现显著差异。这些结果表明，即使在死亡后 3 小时内采样，肠道中产气荚膜梭菌的计数也不能作为犊牛肠毒血症的鉴别性死后诊断工具。
