title: The use of lung biopsy to determine early lung pathology and its association with health and production outcomes in feedlot steers.
abstract: The objectives of this study were to determine if percutaneous lung biopsy can be used to characterize early pathologic changes in bovine lung associated with bovine respiratory disease (BRD), to determine if specific infectious respiratory pathogens can be identified in association with these changes, and to determine whether pulmonary pathology at arrival and at the time of initial diagnosis are associated with health and production outcomes. One hundred auction-market derived crossbred steer calves from a commercial feedlot in southern Alberta were included in this study. A percutaneous lung biopsy technique was used to obtain lung samples from the right middle lung. Steers were sampled 295 times yielding 283 samples with 210 (74%) containing lung tissue. Overall, histopathological changes were observed in 20 (9.5%) of lung biopsy samples. There were too few samples with pathology to reveal an association between lung pathology and subsequent health events. In general, percutaneous lung biopsy can be done safely on feedlot steers in a commercial feedlot setting with few clinical side effects. This technique did not prove useful as a diagnostic tool or prognostic indicator for early BRD. However, it may be useful for the diagnosis of BRD in targeted populations of commercial feedlot steers.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Burgess, Hendrick); Feedlot Health Management Services, Ltd, Okotoks, Alberta (Pollock, Hannon, Abutarbush, Vogstad, Jim, Booker).
authors.forename: Brandy A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Burgess
authors.forename: Steve H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hendrick
authors.forename: Colleen M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Pollock
authors.forename: Sherry J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Hannon
authors.forename: Sameeh M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Abutarbush
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vogstad
authors.forename: G Kee
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Jim
authors.forename: Calvin W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Booker
mesh_terms: D000416:Alberta; D000818:Animals; D001706:Biopsy / Q000379:methods / Q000662:veterinary*; D002417:Cattle; D002418:Cattle Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000662:veterinary; D008297:Male; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000662:veterinary*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric