Utility of postmortem bacterial culture of abdominal organs at autopsy of young calves

Autor: Kaitlin Witherell, Laura White, Lisa Shaw, Letizia Tomassini, Chrissy Eckstrand, Danielle Nelson, Craig S. McConnel, Claire R. Burbick
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation. 35:182-186
ISSN: 1943-4936
1040-6387
Popis: Postmortem bacterial culture is controversial in human medicine, and veterinary-specific research in this area is lacking. To address this knowledge gap, we cultured liver, kidney, and spleen individually from on-farm calf mortalities to determine the number of bacterial species present, concordance between organ cultures, and agreement with gross and histologic findings. We hypothesized that the spleen, a filtering organ, would be the most useful organ with the least amount of postmortem contamination given that it does not have a direct conduit to a bacterial population. Fresh liver, kidney, and spleen were collected for culture from 30 calves 5–28-d-old with various causes of mortality. Bacterial growth of ≥2 species was observed in ~48% of cultures, with Escherichia coli and Streptococcus spp. being most frequent. One bacterial species was present in 20% of cultures, with E. coli predominating. No growth was observed in ~32% of cultures. In 43% of cases, there was agreement in the culture results for all 3 organs; however, the majority were mixed bacterial growth. The best agreement was observed when there were no gross and/or histologic septic lesions in target organs and no bacterial growth on culture. The spleen was not helpful in determining bacterial significance in comparison to kidney or liver.
Databáze: OpenAIRE