The sensitivity and specificity of single manual examination tests for detection of corpora lutea in the ovaries of non-cycling cows

Abstract

Errors associated with pre-mating heat detection are likely to result in between 15 to 30% of cycling cows not detected in oestrous before mating, resulting in the inclusion of cycling cows within the population of non-cycling cows. This mixed population of cows is then subjected to manual examination by veterinarians in order to assign cows to treatment groups. The corpus luteum test has modest sensitivity and high specificity and the size test has high sensitivity and low specificity. Therefore the use of a single examination of the ovaries of cows not detected on heat before the mating period, in order to classify them as anovulatory anoestrous cows with or without a corpus luteum, is not sufficient to accurately classify them and thus to recommend treatment.

Impact of Systemic Pgf2α Plus Intrauterine Benzathine Cephapirin Combination in Treatment of Clinically and Ultrasonographically Diagnosed Endometritis in Holstein Dairy Cows

“…Our results came in agreement with that reported by others (Földi et al, 2006;Palmer, 2008) who found that, diagnosis of clinical endometritis using rectal palpation is subjective, not effective and prone to error as it lacks standardization. In the same manner, it had been reported that, transrectal palpation to identify the presence of a CL is imperfect (Shephard, 2005;Bicalho et al, 2008), but generally has a high specificity and is a "useful tool" that is widely used in veterinary practice. The good fertility results obtained in this study after using US as a diagnostic tool were corresponded to others (Kasimanickam et al, 2004).…”

“…In the present study, the US detection of intrauterine fluid was the unique feature for diagnosis of endometritis and this was supported by Kasimanickam et al (2004) who considered the presence of any US detectable uterine fluid as evidence of subclinical endometritis. In addition, use of US might increase the accuracy of identification of a CL (Shephard, 2005). On the contrary, Ghasemi (2011) reported that US measurements of both cervical diameter and endometrial thickness is not useful for detecting cows with endometritis.…”

Comparison of diagnostic approaches, and a cost-benefi t analysis of different diagnostic approaches and treatments of anoestrous dairy cows

“…That is, cows may fi rstly be defi ned as anoestrus based on lack of removal of tail paint or other oestrus-detection aids (Macmillan and Curnow 1977), and secondly by failure to detect a CL upon palpation or using another diagnostic test. Recently it has been suggested that a single palpation of the ovaries for the presence of a CL in anoestrous cows was not suffi ciently accurate to allow decisions to be made regarding treatment (Shephard 2005).…”