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Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study

BACKGROUND: The major indication for antibiotic use in Danish pigs is treatment of intestinal diseases post weaning. Clinical decisions on antibiotic batch medication are often based on inspection of diarrhoeic pools on the pen floor. In some of these treated diarrhoea outbreaks, intestinal pathogen...

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Autores principales: Pedersen, Ken Steen, Johansen, Markku, Angen, Øystein, Jorsal, Sven Erik, Nielsen, Jens Peter, Jensen, Tim K, Guedes, Roberto, Ståhl, Marie, Bækbo, Poul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25392732
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-0481-67-24
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author Pedersen, Ken Steen
Johansen, Markku
Angen, Øystein
Jorsal, Sven Erik
Nielsen, Jens Peter
Jensen, Tim K
Guedes, Roberto
Ståhl, Marie
Bækbo, Poul
author_facet Pedersen, Ken Steen
Johansen, Markku
Angen, Øystein
Jorsal, Sven Erik
Nielsen, Jens Peter
Jensen, Tim K
Guedes, Roberto
Ståhl, Marie
Bækbo, Poul
author_sort Pedersen, Ken Steen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The major indication for antibiotic use in Danish pigs is treatment of intestinal diseases post weaning. Clinical decisions on antibiotic batch medication are often based on inspection of diarrhoeic pools on the pen floor. In some of these treated diarrhoea outbreaks, intestinal pathogens can only be demonstrated in a small number of pigs within the treated group (low pathogen diarrhoea). Termination of antibiotic batch medication in herds suffering from such diarrhoea could potentially reduce the consumption of antibiotics in the pig industry. The objective of the present pilot study was to suggest criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs. Data previously collected from 20 Danish herds were used to create a case series of clinical diarrhoea outbreaks normally subjected to antibiotic treatment. In the present study, these diarrhoea outbreaks were classified as low pathogen (<15% of the pigs having bacterial intestinal disease) (n =5 outbreaks) or high pathogen (≥15% of the pigs having bacterial intestinal disease) (n =15 outbreaks). Based on the case series, different diagnostic procedures were explored, and criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea were suggested. The effect of sampling variation was explored by simulation. RESULTS: The diagnostic procedure with the highest combined herd-level sensitivity and specificity was qPCR testing of a pooled sample containing 20 randomly selected faecal samples. The criteria for a positive test result (high pathogen diarrhoea outbreak) were an average of 1.5 diarrhoeic faecal pools on the floor of each pen in the room under investigation and a pathogenic bacterial load ≥35,000 per gram in the faecal pool tested by qPCR. The bacterial load was the sum of Lawsonia intracellularis, Brachyspira pilosicoli and Escherichia coli F4 and F18 bacteria per gram faeces. The herd-diagnostic performance was (herd-level) diagnostic sensitivity =0.99, diagnostic specificity =0.80, positive predictive value =0.94 and negative predictive value =0.96. CONCLUSIONS: The pilot study suggests criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs. The suggested criteria should now be evaluated, and the effect of terminating antibiotic batch medication in herds identified as suffering from low pathogen diarrhoea should be explored. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2046-0481-67-24) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-42281182014-11-13 Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study Pedersen, Ken Steen Johansen, Markku Angen, Øystein Jorsal, Sven Erik Nielsen, Jens Peter Jensen, Tim K Guedes, Roberto Ståhl, Marie Bækbo, Poul Ir Vet J Research BACKGROUND: The major indication for antibiotic use in Danish pigs is treatment of intestinal diseases post weaning. Clinical decisions on antibiotic batch medication are often based on inspection of diarrhoeic pools on the pen floor. In some of these treated diarrhoea outbreaks, intestinal pathogens can only be demonstrated in a small number of pigs within the treated group (low pathogen diarrhoea). Termination of antibiotic batch medication in herds suffering from such diarrhoea could potentially reduce the consumption of antibiotics in the pig industry. The objective of the present pilot study was to suggest criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs. Data previously collected from 20 Danish herds were used to create a case series of clinical diarrhoea outbreaks normally subjected to antibiotic treatment. In the present study, these diarrhoea outbreaks were classified as low pathogen (<15% of the pigs having bacterial intestinal disease) (n =5 outbreaks) or high pathogen (≥15% of the pigs having bacterial intestinal disease) (n =15 outbreaks). Based on the case series, different diagnostic procedures were explored, and criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea were suggested. The effect of sampling variation was explored by simulation. RESULTS: The diagnostic procedure with the highest combined herd-level sensitivity and specificity was qPCR testing of a pooled sample containing 20 randomly selected faecal samples. The criteria for a positive test result (high pathogen diarrhoea outbreak) were an average of 1.5 diarrhoeic faecal pools on the floor of each pen in the room under investigation and a pathogenic bacterial load ≥35,000 per gram in the faecal pool tested by qPCR. The bacterial load was the sum of Lawsonia intracellularis, Brachyspira pilosicoli and Escherichia coli F4 and F18 bacteria per gram faeces. The herd-diagnostic performance was (herd-level) diagnostic sensitivity =0.99, diagnostic specificity =0.80, positive predictive value =0.94 and negative predictive value =0.96. CONCLUSIONS: The pilot study suggests criteria for herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs. The suggested criteria should now be evaluated, and the effect of terminating antibiotic batch medication in herds identified as suffering from low pathogen diarrhoea should be explored. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2046-0481-67-24) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2014-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4228118/ /pubmed/25392732 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-0481-67-24 Text en © Pedersen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Pedersen, Ken Steen
Johansen, Markku
Angen, Øystein
Jorsal, Sven Erik
Nielsen, Jens Peter
Jensen, Tim K
Guedes, Roberto
Ståhl, Marie
Bækbo, Poul
Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title_full Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title_fullStr Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title_full_unstemmed Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title_short Herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
title_sort herd diagnosis of low pathogen diarrhoea in growing pigs – a pilot study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25392732
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-0481-67-24
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