Establishing blood gas ranges in healthy bovine neonates differentiated by age, sex, and breed type

Abstract

Calf mortality and morbidity commonly occurs within the first month of life postpartum. Standard health ranges are invaluable aids in diagnostic veterinary medicine to confirm normal or the degree and nature of abnormal parameters in (sub)clinically ill animals. Extensive research has indicated significant differences between the physiologies of neonate and adult cattle, particularly for blood parameters such as pH, base excess, anion gap, and bicarbonate (HCO). The objective of this research was to determine the influence of age, sex, and breed type, in addition to environmental factors, on the normal blood gas profiles of neonatal calves, and thus develop a scientifically validated reference range accounting for any significant factors. The study was conducted on healthy neonatal calves (n = 288), and completed over a 2-yr period. Individual calf blood gas analysis was conducted for parameters of pH, base excess, Na, K, Ca, Cl, glucose, total hemoglobin, HCO, pCO, anion gap, strong ion difference, and hematocrit levels. Regression procedures examined the combined effect of year, farm, age, breed type, sex, and hours postfeeding on each variable. Significant effects were observed for age, sex, and breed type on several of the blood gas variables. Furthermore, year, farm, and hours postfeeding appeared to have less of an influence on neonatal bovine blood gas profiles. Consequently, specific ranges based on the neonate's age, sex, and breed type will allow for more detailed and accurate diagnosis of health and ill health in neonatal calves.

Tonicity of oral rehydration solutions affects water, mineral and acid–base balance in calves with naturally occurring diarrhoea

“…Treat: p = .007 Time: p < .001 Treat × Time: p = .41 Baseline Baseline Baseline Dillane, Krump, Kennedy, Sayers, & Sayers, 2018), whereas CON and HYPER calves did not. In addition, calves receiving low tonicity ORS had higher concentrations of HCO − 3 and tCO 2 compared with HYPER and CON calves.…”

Distribution of serum amyloid A and establishment of reference intervals in healthy adults

“…Because the reference interval is also susceptible to methodological differences, population characteristics and geographical differences, the reference interval provided by the reagent manufacturer has limitations, so a laboratory self-built reference interval is particularly important. 12,13 Unfortunately, so far there have been a few reports about the establishment of SAA reference intervals in humans. 14,15 Hence, the present study was conducted through recruitment, sampling, and measurement.…”

Determining the predictive capability of a Clinical Assessment Scoring Chart to differentiate severity of the clinical consequences of neonatal calf diarrhea relative to gold-standard blood gas analysis

“…The first examination determined the suitability of the CAS chart to differentiate clinically normal from NCD-associated acidotic/dehydrated cases (regardless of the illness severity). This was conducted by utilizing the lower health reference limit [32] to establish a normal/abnormal cut-off point for each gold standard blood gas variables of pH, HCO 3 and BE which were used as the dependent 'true' variable and plotted against the CAS score of clinically normal (CAS score of 0) or clinically abnormal (acidotic/dehydrated) (CAS score �1). The aim of the second ROC analysis, was to complete a theoretical determination on how close to the lower reference limit could the chart be regarded as optimal in terms of sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp), in differentiating acidotic/dehydrated and clinically normal calves.…”

“…A total of 443 calves (non-diarrheic: n = 393 and diarrheic: n = 50) across six farms (Farms A to F) were enrolled in the study. The sample population consisted of pooled data from previously published studies of Sayers et al (2016) [12] (n = 82) and Dillane et al (2018) [32] (n = 288), in addition to 73 non-diarrheic and diarrheic calves sampled for this research. The study was completed over a three-year period from 2015 to 2017.…”