Evaluation of a point‐of‐care electrochemical meter to detect subclinical ketosis and hypoglycaemia in lactating dairy cows

Abstract

The electrochemical meter provided a clinically useful method to detect subclinical ketosis and hypoglycaemia in lactating dairy cows. Compared with other method validation studies using the meter, we attributed the improved performance of the electrochemical meter to application of a fixed volume of blood (20 μL) to the reagent strip, use of the meter in hot ambient conditions and use of glucose oxidase as the reference method for glucose analysis.

Effects of a Multicomponent Herbal Extract on the Course of Subclinical Ketosis in Dairy Cows – a Blinded Placebo-controlled Field-study

“…All cows were at least in their second lactation. They were tested in intervals of exact 7 days (168 ± 1 h; usually immediately following a milking time) for initial blood-BHB using the cow-side test "FreeStyle Precision" (Abbott AG) [5,6]. Cows with a blood-BHB ≥ 1.0 mmol/L were defined as subclinically ketotic.…”

“…The measured value at milking time 1 (12 h after detection of subclinical ketosis via measuring cow-side blood-BHB) represents the MAC before treatment. Milking times 3,5,7,9,11,13,19, and 27 were used to display the development of MAC during and after treatment (▶ Table 3). For this purpose, foremilk samples of 1 udder quarter were taken by the farmer, bottled in test tubes with bronopol, a conservation medium, and refrigerated on farm directly after the dilution of bronopol, until they were collected the week after.…”

“…Despite the absence of clinical symptoms, subclinical ketosis is easy to diagnose. Several cow-side tests measuring β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) in blood, such as the electronic handheld device FreeStyle Precision, have shown a high sensitivity and specificity, leading to reliable BHB results when compared to the gold standard, the laboratory analysis of BHB [5,6]. In addition, a good correlation between the milk acetone (MAC) value and the BHB value in blood has been demonstrated [7][8][9].…”

In this issue – April 2017

“…A paper from Iran suggests that using a hand‐held blood glucose meter would be a cost‐effective alternative to measuring blood beta‐hydroxybutyrate for identifying cows with subclinical ketosis during lactation . This device has been assessed previously, but this article has a new perspective on the validation of this type of point‐of‐care device.…”

Diagnostic information for mastitis treatments on dairy farms

“…All aspects together determine the probability that a cow cures from mastitis. to diagnose hyperketonemia on dairy farms (Tatone et al, 2016), to tests to diagnose hypoglycemia (Zakian et al, 2017), to diagnose Infecti ous Bovine Rhinotracheiti s virus (Hou et al, 2017), or Brucellosis in semen in resource-limited regions (Yang et al, 2018). Furthermore, on-farm tests have been evaluated that could, for example, detect uterine E. coli infecti ons (Dubuc, 2017), or guide treatment for purulent vaginal discharge (Madoz et al, 2017).…”