Measurement of gestagen concentration in feces using a bovine milk progesterone quantitative test EIA kit and its application to early pregnancy diagnosis in the sow.

We attempted to measure the gestagen concentration in the feces of pigs by using a commercial bovine milk progesterone quantitative test EIA kit, and investigated the possibility of applying of this method of gestagen concentration measurement to early pregnancy diagnosis in the sow. Feces were collected from the rectum of the pig, and 0.5 g of the feces was placed in 20 ml of distilled water, stirred, and centrifuged. The supernatant was used as the fecal solution for measurement of gestagen. The procedure used for measuring gestagen in feces was the same as that for the measurement of progesterone in milk, except that a standard fecal gestagen solution (0.5-30.0 ng/ml) was prepared by the authors in the laboratory. The sensitivity of measurement using this method was 0.80 ng/ml, or 32.0 ng/g of fecal weight. The recovery was 105.2-105.6%. Intra-assay coeffecients of variation (CVs) were 2.8-8.5%. The interassay CVs were 7.4-10.2%. Gestagen concentrations in feces measured by the present method and progesterone concentrations in peripheral plasma, collected at the same time as the feces were highly correlated (r = 0.98, p < 0.001). The criteria for diagnosis of pregnancy based on the fecal gestagen level was positive for a gestagen level of > or = 200 ng/g and negative for a gestagen level of < 200 ng/g. When fecal gestagen measurements were applied to early pregnancy diagnosis in 149 sows, the accuracy of diagnosis from day 21 to day 25 after the last mating was 96.2% for positive cases (102/106) and 95.3% for negative cases (41/43). Thus, the results of this study show the quantitative measurement of the fecal gestagen concentration in the sow using a bovine milk quantitative test EIA kit is a practical method for early pregnancy diagnosis.