Lung scoring at the slaughterhouse is a valuable tool for assessment of the respiratory health status of a large number of animals at a single visit, at relatively limited cost.

Moreover, there is a clear relation between lung lesions present at slaughterhouse and economic impact of respiratory disease [1], making lung scoring an attractive tool for decision making and effect monitoring of veterinary interventions.

To facilitate efficient and hygienic lung lesion scoring at slaughterhouses, Ceva Animal Health recently developed a tablet-based software tool allowing for rapid scoring of batches of lungs, without the use of paper with automated processing and storage of data.

This application is a part of Ceva Lung program (CLP).

Materials and Methods

In between February 2014 and June 2015, a total of 508 batches of lungs were scored using the CLP app.

Lungs were scored following the CLP method [2], with presence, type and extension of lung lesions described by:

• Enzootic pneumonia (EP)-like lesions following a modified Madec methodology.
  
  
• Cranio-ventral pleurisy scoring, to describe EP associated secondary pleurisy (score 0-1).
  
  
• Scarring, describing prevalence of fissures in the cranial lobe associated with older EP-like lesions (score 0-1).
  
  
• Dorsocaudal pleurisy score, to describe Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (APP)-like lesions (scale 0-4).
  
  
• Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae Index (APPI), using prevalence and grade of dorsocaudal pleurisy.

In total, 40399 lungs were scored originating from the Philippines (15 batches), Vietnam (10 batches) and outside Asia (ROW, 483 batches in 10 countries). Results outside Asia were pooled, and compared with values obtained for the Philippines and Vietnam.

Results

Discussion

Both EP - like and APP - like lesions have a high prevalence in pig lungs investigated at the slaughterhouse. Interestingly the incidence of APP - like lesions in Vietnam is lower than in other countries, while that of M. hyo - like lesions in higher both in Philippines and Vietnam than in ROW.

This finding together with variation between farms suggests improvement of lung health is feasible.

References

[1] Hill MA, Scheidt AB, Teclaw RF, Clark LK, Knox KE and Jordan M. Relationship between the indicators of performance and the weight of pneumonic lesions rom pigs at slaughter. Res Vet Sci. 1994; 56: 240-4.

[2] Krejci R, Bijasa R and Lopez A. Lung lesion survey in the Philippines. Proceedings 6th Asian Pig Veterinary Society Congress, 2013, OR6.