Ozonized autohemotherapy, a new method to treat dairy cow acute interdigital phlegmon. Comparison with ceftiofur and oxytetracycline

Abstract

To determine whether ozone (a powerful germicidal agent) administered by autohemotherapy would be useful for treatment of acute interdigital phlegmon (foot rot) in dairy cows, 60 animals affected by clinical signs of foot rot were used in this trial. Twenty dairy cows were assigned to one of the three treatment groups: ceftiour sodium 1.0 mg/kg Body Weight (B.W.) i.v. every 12 h; oxytetracycline 6.0 mg/kg B.W. i.v. every 24 h; ozone 60 mg in 1000 ml of blood by i.v. autohemotherapy every 24 h. Treatments stopped when animals were no longer lame. All the lameness stopped after three days of ceftiour treatment, three days of oxytetracycline treatment and one day of ozone autohemotherapy treatment. Use of ozone in autohemotherapy for dairy cow foot rot was as effective as ceftiour and oxytetracycline treatments, and resulted to be the best one because milk and meat obtained from dairy cows treated with ozone were not subject to withdrawal time.