Abstract
The present study was conducted to evaluate Whiteside test (WST), endometrial cytology and uterine lavage sample optical density (ULSOD) for diagnosis of endometritis in postpartum crossbred cows. A total of 34 cows between 30-45 days in milk were screened under field conditions. Endometrial cytology samples collected using cytobrush technique were examined for polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) cells, and samples with ≥10% PMNs were considered positive. Whiteside test was performed using cervico-vaginal mucus and 5% sodium hydroxide solution, while uterine lavage samples were analysed spectrophotometrically at 620 nm. Optical density (OD) values ≥0.052 were considered positive for uterine inflammation. The incidence of endometritis recorded by cytology, WST and ULSOD was 73.53, 73.53 and 58.82%, respectively. Based on WST, 23.53, 35.29 and 14.71% cows showed mild, moderate and strong positive reactions, respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, diagnostic accuracy and kappa value for ULSOD were 72, 77, 90, 50, 73.52% and 0.46, respectively, while corresponding values for WST were 92, 77.8, 92, 77.8, 88.23% and 0.72. The findings indicated that endometrial cytology remains a reliable diagnostic method, while WST serves as a rapid and economical field screening test and ULSOD provides an objective quantitative assessment of uterine inflammation.
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