Ovarian Neoplastic Changes in Dairy Cows with Adenomyosis - Histopathological Study

INTRODUCTION: This paper presents the results of the microscopic examination of dairy cow ovaries. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The examined dairy cows were culled in a slaughterhouse. In all of them, pathological changes (n = 82) associated with adenomyosis had been previously diagnosed, and additionally in some cows (n = 18) so had mammary gland cell injury, including mastitis purulenta. RESULTS: There was vast variability among the investigated individuals in the degree of disease and type of pathological changes in the examined tissue specimens. In all examined ovaries, the most prominent lesions were neoplastic metaplasia of various cell types. They were PEComa, rete ovarii cell neoplasm, granulosa cell tumour, and a single case of haemangioma cavernosum, and the first of these types of ovarian tumours was the prominent neoplasia. In some cases, they grew simultaneously with the other types of tumours, but tumour tissue never extended beyond the ovarian capsule. Sometimes, the ovarian tumours were of microscopic volume, for instance the foci of granulosa cell tumours. CONCLUSION: The lack of changes in ovarian anatomic structure, and minute neoplastic tissue foci, make it impossible to diagnose these lesions in the ovaries of living animals. The presented original data may be valuable in understanding the aetiology of dairy cow infertility, as well as in facilitating urgently needed research into findings new methods, which might be used in the diagnosis of neoplastic diseases ante mortem.