title: Early pregnancy diagnosis in swine by direct radioimmunoassay for progesterone in blood spotted on filter paper.
abstract: A direct radioimmunoassay method for the measurement of progesterone in blood dried on filter paper has been developed for the early pregnancy diagnosis in sows, as well as for monitoring progesterone levels during the oestrous cycle. Pregnancy diagnosis was performed with 95 sows on Days 17-22 after artificial insemination (AI). The cut-off value for pregnancy diagnosis of 7.5 ng/ml was calculated (mean+/-2S.D.) from the progesterone concentrations measured on the same days from non-inseminated animals. There were 85 cases considered pregnant on the basis of progesterone concentration, leaving 10 animals non-pregnant. The accuracy for the positive cases was 98.8%. Two of the 10 sows considered as negative subsequently farrowed, giving an accuracy of 80%. The overall accuracy of the method was 96.8%. The blood-spot assay may be a useful tool for early pregnancy diagnosis in swine, with respect to sampling, simplicity, speed and accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Anatomy and Physiology of Domestic Animals, Department of Animal Science, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera odos 75, 11855, Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chadio
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Xylouri
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kalogiannis
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Michalopoulou
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Evagelatos
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Menegatos
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004971:Estrus / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D007315:Insemination, Artificial / Q000662:veterinary; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011259:Pregnancy Tests, Immunologic / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary*; D011374:Progesterone / Q000032:analysis / Q000097:blood*; D011863:Radioimmunoassay / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary*; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013552:Swine / Q000097:blood / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D011374:Progesterone