Comparison of recording of pericarditis and lung disorders at routine meat inspection with findings at systematic health monitoring in Danish finisher pigs

Abstract

BackgroundThe use of secondary data is widespread in a range of surveillance and monitoring applications because of the low cost and high availability associated with this form of data. However, as they are often collected for quite unrelated purposes, they are not necessarily fit for the new purpose that is required of them. Routine meat inspection data were originally collected with the purpose of safeguarding food, but have been re-tasked to also include animal welfare assessment. The objective of the present study was to compare the recording of pericarditis, pleuritis and lungs with lesions at routine meat inspection (RMI) with those performed at systematic health monitoring (SHM) in Danish pigs at slaughter, in order to assess the usefulness of RMI for monitoring the prevalence of these diseases. Data originating from 165 Danish pig herds were collected in the period September 2011 to November 2013. From each herd, a batch consisting of all pigs slaughtered on a specific day from a specific farm were included as the RMI data, while lungs and hearts sampled from the batches were used for the SHM. The RMI data and SHM data included recordings related to a) chronic pericarditis, b) chronic pleuritis and c) lung lesions. The proportion of carcases with a specific disease recording was estimated for each batch of pigs, and linear regression was used to relate the RMI-proportion to the SHM-proportion for the conditions mentioned above.ResultsThe coefficients of determination (R2) were estimated as R2,pericarditis = 0.16; R2,pleuritis = 0.67; R2,lungs with lesions = 0.40. R2,pericarditis changed to 0.42 when the regression analysis included inspection type at the abattoir (with purely visual inspection of the hearts versus traditional inspection including an incision into the heart).ConclusionsOverall, the results suggest that the correlation between findings at RMI and SHM was moderate for pleuritis and lungs with lesions, but poor for pericarditis. The latter could partly be explained by the type of meat inspection conducted at the abattoir. We conclude that caution should be used whenever RMI data are used for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended.

Animal health and disease monitoring in the abattoir

“…Both publications particularly discuss pericarditis. Nielsen et al (2015) conclude that there is not a strong correlation between the post mortem findings and the prevalence assessed on the basis of systematic health monitoring in fattening pigs in Denmark. Raji et al (2010) found a relatively high prevalence (17.06 %) in cattle in an abattoir in Nigeria.…”

“…Cardiac pathology is specifically investigated during meat inspection (Nielsen et al, 2015, Raji et al, 2010. Both publications particularly discuss pericarditis.…”

Relationship between pig carcass tail lesions and lung lesions

“…The main practical limitation of the study was the line speed (6 pigs/min), placing a time constraint on the assessment of lung lesions in each pig. Nielsen et al (2015) found a moderate correlations between lung lesions recorded at routine meat inspection and lung lesions recorded at systematic health monitoring. Differences in observer sensitivity and the differing objectives of public health versus animal health monitoring may explain why the results of our study are different from those of Teixeira et al (in preparation) who found significant Epidemiology and control of hazards in pork production chain -SAFEPORK One health approach under a concept of farm to fork associations between tail lesion scores and lung condemnations due to pleurisy and (pleuro)pneumonia.…”

Multi-Stakeholder Focus Groups on Potential for Meat Inspection Data to Inform Management of Pig Health and Welfare on Farm

“…Differences exist between findings made by meat inspectors or pathologists/veterinary researchers, with the latter typically showing higher sensitivity [21,[25][26][27], which is probably due to different roles and responsibilities and the associated time constraints.…”