Diagnosing postpartum endometritis in dairy cattle

The arrow indicates pus discharging from the vulva It is important for vets to be able to diagnose endometritis accurately because the disease can cause infertility in individual cows and reduce the overall reproductive performance of dairy herds.2-4 Endometritis increases the average interval from calving to first insemination by nearly a week compared with normal cows, delays conception by about four weeks and nearly doubles the likelihood of cows being culled for failure to conceive. [...]in about 15 to 20 per cent of dairy cows, there is pus in the reproductive tract and/or an enlarged cervix, which are signs of endometritis.2,3,7 Clinical endometritis is defined by the presence of pus in the uterus three weeks or more after calving, usually with a purulent uterine discharge detectable in the vagina, and/or a cervix greater than 7.5 cm in diameter. The severity of endometritis can be scored based on the abundance and appearance of pus in the vaginal mucus: score 0 is normal, clear or translucent mucus; score 1 endometritis is mucus containing flecks of pus, which is usually white or off-white in colour; score 2 endometritis is mucus containing less than 50 per cent pus; and score 3 endometritis is mucus containing more than 50 per cent pus.1,5,8 The prognostic value of scoring the severity of endometritis is that animals with higher scores have lower treatment success rates and, even after successful treatment, they have lower conception rates. [...]transrectal ultrasonography should be used to identify pus in the uterus and determine whether the cervix is enlarged.