Use of cytobrush for bacteriological and cytological diagnosis of endometritis in mares

Vet World Vol.17 February-2024 Article-19

Research Article

Veterinary World, 17(2): 398-406

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2024.398-406

Chiara Del Prete¹, Francesca Paola Nocera², Giuseppe Piegari², Veronica Palumbo³, Luisa De Martino², Natascia Cocchia¹, Orlando Paciello², Chiara Montano⁴, and Maria Pia Pasolini⁴

1. Reproduction Unit, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Productions, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
2. Diagnostic Service of Pathology and Animal Health, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Productions, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
3. Regional Reference Center for Urban Veterinary Hygiene (CRIUV), Naples, Italy.
4. Surgery Unit, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Productions, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.

Background and Aim: A combined microbial and cytological examination of uterine samples is the main diagnostic method for endometritis in mares. This study aimed to describe a procedure for using the same uterine cytobrush (CB) for both bacteriological and cytological evaluation.

Materials and Methods: The procedure consists of rolling the CB onto a sterilized glass slide immediately after collection and before the transfer into a sterile saline solution. In Experiment 1, a comparison between bacteriological results of the cotton swab (CS) and CB or pellet was made in 10 mares; in Experiment 2, bacteriological and cytological results were compared between different processing methods of CB in 28 mares; in other 6 mares, a CB was processed for cytology only, to investigate the reasons for the low cellularity of the pellet.

Results: The agreement between culture results from the CB and CS was evaluated, and a comparison between the cytological data obtained by different processing methods of CB was performed. The perfect agreement between the CB and CS microbiological results was found. The described procedure enables useful diagnostic smears for cytology. Moreover, the seeding of both the tip of CB and the saline solution used for the transport produced accurate bacteriological results.

Conclusion: The protocol described in this study for the use of CB for both cytological and bacteriological analysis could be used for the diagnosis of endometritis. To maximize diagnostic sample quality, cytology slides must be prepared with meticulous care in the field to preserve cellular integrity and minimize artifacts. Keywords: endometritis, field conditions, mare, microbiology brush, uterine sampling.

Keywords: endometritis, field conditions, mare, microbiology brush, uterine sampling.

How to cite this article: Del Prete C, Nocera FP, Piegari G, Palumbo V, De Martino L, Cocchia N, Paciello O, Montano C, and Pasolini MP (2024) Use of cytobrush for bacteriological and cytological diagnosis of endometritis in mares, Veterinary World, 17(2): 398–406.

Received: 25-10-2023 Accepted: 24-01-2024 Published online: 16-02-2024

Corresponding author: Chiara Del Prete E-mail: chiara.delprete@unina.it

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2024.398-406

Copyright: Del Prete, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.