Prevalence of inflammatory process in the reproductive tract affecting the reproductive performance in crossbred dairy cows

Endocervical inflammation and uterine inflammation during early postpartum have affect the conception. However, the presence of cervicitis was not indicative of endometritis (Deguillaume et al., J. Dairy Sci. 95, 1776-1783, 2012). The objective was to evaluate the prevalence of endometrial and endocervical inflammation in crossbred cows at greater than 60 days in milk (DIM). Endometrial and endocervical cytological samples were collected from 149 crossbred cows at slatherhouse (Uberlândia-MG). Only uterine tratcts having completed uterine involution at macroscopic evaluation were used. The endometrial sample was collected using cytobrush. The thresholds of 5% and 6% neutrophils was considered to classify the inflammation in the cervix and in the uterus, respectively (Ahmadi et al., Veterinarski Arhiv 76(4), 323-332, 2006; Deguillaume et al., J. Dairy Sci. 95, 1776-1783, 2012). An additional histological analysis from the cervix and corpus of the uterus were performed. As results, 4.0% (6/149) of the cows presented inflammation on the cervix, 5.4% (8/149) presented endometritis and only 2.0% (3/149) presented both of inflamations. Interestingly, the degrees of cervix inflammation were: 66.6% (6/9) of the cows presented no inflammatory infiltration on cervical mucosa, 22.2% (2/9) had mild inflammatory infiltration and 11.1% (1/9) demonstrated moderate inflammatory infiltration. Furthermore, two of these three cows presented also inflammation in the endometrium. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that 11.4 % of crossbred dairy cows with 60 DIM have some inflammation on endometrial and/or cervix.