4 - Female genital system

Abstract

This chapter discusses the pathology of the female genital system of veterinary animals. The pathology of genital system described in this discussion is divided on the basis of structural units, such as non-gravid, gravid female (uterus, placenta, and fetus), cervix, vagina, vulva, and mammary glands. The complex physiologic events that are associated within the estrus cycle in pregnancy or during the postpartum periods in female reproductive system are accompanied by dramatic tissue changes in the gonads, tubular, and external genitalia, such as marked hyperplasia, atrophy, necrosis, hemorrhage, and tissue invasion. These are changes that pathologists usually associate with pathological processes. In nongravid females pathologies illustrated in the discussion are related to: ovary such as ovarian cysts, germinal inclusion cysts of the mare, cystic follicular disease, cystic ovarian disease in cows, and neoplastic diseases; uterine tubes such as hydrosalpinx and salpingitis and pyosalpinx; uterus such as abnormalities of position or location; endometrium such as irregularities of endometrial growth, uterine accumulation of secretory, or inflammatory exudates. Diseases related to gravid uterus, placenta, and fetus include embryonic death, fetal death, fetus mummification, fetal maceration and emphysema, hydramnios and hydrallantois, amniotic plaques, placental mineralization, avascular chorion, and prolonged gestation. Further, the causes of abortion and stillbirth, such as bacterial, mycotic, epizootic, protozoan, and viral are also presented. The chapter discusses the pathology of cervix, vagina, and vulva, including tumefaction of the vulva, inflammatory diseases of the vagina and vulva, granular venereal disease, infectious bovine cervicovaginitis and epididymitis, infectious pustular vulvovaginitis of cattle, contagious equine metritis, necrotic vaginitis and vulvitis, dourine, and neoplastic diseases of the tubular genitalia. Additionally, the veterinary pathology of mammary glands of various domestic animals, such as cow, swine, cats, sheep, and dogs are described.