No simple association between time elapsed from seroconversion until slaughter and the extent of lung lesions in Danish swine

Abstract

The association between the extent of pathological lung lesions at slaughter and the time elapsed from seroconversion to slaughter was examined in a longitudinal study including 830 pigs from eight herds. Pigs from an age of 3 weeks were bled every fourth week, and the sera were analyzed for the presence of antibodies to Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae serotypes 2, 5, 6, 7 and 12. At slaughter, the extent of mycoplasma-like catharral pneumonia, chronic pleuritis (dorso-caudal and ventro-cranial), interlobular-scar retractions, acute pleuropneumonia and chronic pleuropneumonia was recorded. Poisson regression was used to model the relationship between time elapsed from seroconversion to slaughter (divided into 4-week intervals) and extent of lesions, including “age at slaughter” and “gender” as independent variables and “litter” as an explanatory random variable. Analysis was only performed on lesions which had a prevalence >20% in at least five of the herds (mycoplasma-like catharral pneumonia, ventro-cranial and dorso-caudal pleuritis). Only a few consistent statistical associations were revealed across herds. Pigs seroconverting to M. hyopneumoniae close to slaughter expressed the largest extent of mycoplasma-like catharral pneumonia, and early seroconversion to M. hyopneumoniae was related to large ventro-cranial pleuritic lesions. In these eight herds, recording of the extent of pathological lung lesions at slaughter at most yielded insight into the within-herd epidemiologic dynamics of M. hyopneumoniae — and not to any of the serotypes of A. pleuropneumoniae.