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Early detection of mastitits using ultrasonographic teat and udder tissue changes and measuring echogenicity using an innovative method
Singh, O.; Gupta, D.K.; Singh, S...
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Objective: Traditionally, the echogenicity of a tissue is expressed as anechoic, hypoechoic isoechoic and hyperechoic. However, this method is very subjective. So, a new method was devised to assess the level of echogenicity of a tissue with the help of software ImageJ. As mastitis is of high economic importance early diagnosis is necessary and USG can help in early diagnosis by measuring the changes in teat and udder tissue. So, the experiment was done to measure echogenicity of infected udder tissue and to evaluate the ultrasonographic changes due to intra-mammary infection of dairy cows.
Materials and Methods: Ultrasonography was conducted just before milking and quarter health status was determined based on milk SCC and bacteriological findings to determine the udder and teat tissue changes with respect to quarter health status. The ultrasound scans of teat structure were performed with a portable ultrasound scanning system (Sonosite M-Turbo) using a 10-5 MHz linear transducer by water bath technique or cup method. The teat tissue measurements were later done using the software ImageJ. The USG picture of udder tissue captured in RGB format was converted into greyscale (8-bit) format by using the same software. And in greyscale there are 256 shades ranging from pure black (0) to pure white (255). Division was done into 8 Grades(Grade1-8) , so that grade 1 has pixels ranging from 0 to 31, grade 2 had pixels ranging from shade 32-63 and so on till grade had shade 224 to 255.The software was used for the first time for the measurement of echogenicity.
A total of 32 apparently healthy lactating HF crossbred dairy cows, having 121 functional teats, were ultrasonographically scanned at university dairy farm. Quarter foremilk samples were aseptically collected and immediately transferred to the laboratory. Ultrasonographic readings such as teat canal length (TCL), teat cistern diameter (CD), teat wall thickness (TWT), overall teat diameter (OTD), the teat diameter at the level of the Furstenberg rosette (FTD) and associated changes in udder were recorded. The isolation and identification of microbial organisms from milk samples was done as per standard microbial procedures of National Mastitis Council (Brown et al 1969). Bromothymol blue (BTB) paper test, California Mastitis Test (CMT), electrical conductivity and pH of milk were performed. The analysis of milk samples for somatic cell count (SCC) (Delta Instruments, The Netherlands) was also done.
Results: Upon comparison of teat tissue measurements in relation to quarter health status, the TCL and CD were observed to be significantly increased in specific mastitis quarters compared to that of healthy ones. While TWT increased in quarters with latent infection and specific mastitis compared to healthy ones. The BTB score was significantly different in both non-specific mastitis and specific mastitis quarters, when compared to both healthy and latent infection quarters. Similar observations were noted with CMT score, EC, pH and Log10SCC values. The TWT was found to be significantly more in quarters with SCC 5-10 lac cells/ml of milk and in quarters with SCC > 10 lac, when compared with quarters having <2 lac and SCC 2-5 lac /ml of milk. The TCL, TWT and FTD were significantly more and CD less in infected teats in comparison to non-infected ones. Log10SCC and CMT were significantly positively correlated with TWT and negatively with CD. During the measurement of echogenicity it was noted that pixels of higher grades (more echogenicity) i.e. G7 and G8 were absent from healthy quarters. And mean Log10G1 was significantly lesser and Log10G3 significantly higher for quarters with specific SCM thus suggesting that the amount of normal tissue (less echo-genic) reduced due to infection and the echogenicity was also increased. The amount of pixels in G5 was significantly lesser in healthy and specific mastitic quarters as compared to quar- ters with latent infection.
Conclusion: It can be concluded from the results that teat tissue changes can be detected in sub-clinically affected teats with the help of ultrasonography and Echographic measurements of teat were well correlated with milk inflammatory parameters so, they can be taken into consideration while assessing for infection. Grading, as indicated by our findings, can be used to measure echogenicity. The data is small, however with further valuation this technique can be standardized for better accuracy.
Keywords: Ultrasonography, teat, udder, tissue changes, echogenicity.
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Affiliation of the authors at the time of publication
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, India.
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