Association of the severity of lung lesions with carcass and meat quality in slaughter pigs

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the association of lung lesions with carcass and meat quality traits in slaughter pigs and to describe the main morphological features associated with lung lesions. Macroscopic lesions on the lungs were detected in 67.09% of a total of 79 pigs examined. Histopathological examination revealed that acute and chronic interstitial pneumonia represented the commonest changes, detected in 26.67% and 33.33% of the cases, respectively. Bronchopneumonia was found in 33.33% of the cases. By immunohistochemical examination, 26.67% of the lungs showed the presence of severe peribronchiolar and perialveolar infiltration composed predominantly of CD3+ T lymphocytes, which finding may be indicative of viral pneumonia. Regarding the production traits, it was confirmed that pigs with severe lung lesions had the lowest liveweight, hot carcass weight and meatiness, the highest pH value 45 min after slaughtering (pH) and the highest incidence of dark, firm, dry (DFD) and pale, soft, exudative (PSE) meat. The presence of lung lesions significantly downgraded carcass value and caused a significant deterioration in pork quality.

Current Swine Respiratory Diseases Morphology in Intensive Swine Production in Serbia

“…The percentage of lung lesions associated with App lesions in herds confi rms the importance of this pathogen as a causative agent. Chronic pleural lesions are commonly detected at the abattoir, since the resolution of pleural lesions associated with pleurisy can take 3 months or more, very often the process is not completed prior to slaughter [3,6,7].…”

“…It is well recognized that, moving and mixing pigs of different origin increase the risks of pleuropneumonia [3,50]. The disease can also take on a chronic form where production losses are affected and pathological lesions at slaughter, such as adherence, pleurisy and lung abscesses are usually seen [6,44,51]. The bacterium is diffi cult to detect in live pigs due to the labor intensive sampling procedure, and secondly because outbreaks are impossible to predict and develop rapidly, so it is impossible to monitor the course of colonization and infection in animals [3,51].…”

“…Lung diseases result in economic losses due to poor growth performance, reduced feed effi ciency, higher medication costs and eventually has an adverse effect on pig welfare [2,4,5]. It is considered that pleurisy and cranioventral pulmonary consolidation are the most frequent fi ndings in pig lungs at the slaughter line [6,7]. Even more, it is believed that only a few pigs reared under commercial conditions can be expected to reach the slaughterhouse without contracting some sort of lung lesion during their productive lives [1,3].…”

“…Considering the complexity of the etiology, respiratory diseases in pigs are often referred to as porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC) [30,37]. Today it is well known that PRDC is polymicrobial in nature, and results from infection with various combinations of primary and secondary respiratory pathogens [3,6,15]. As a true multifactorial disease, environmental conditions, population size, management strategies and pig-specifi c factors also play roles in the outcome of PRDC [2,3,9,15].…”

Slaughterline records of various postmortem pathological lesions and their influence on carcass and meat quality in slaughtered pigs

“…Abattoir‐detected pathologies cause significant negative effects such as: (a) farm financial losses attributed to decreased average daily weight gain, growth rate and feed digestibility, high morbidity and mortality, and increased medication and veterinary expenses (Jäger et al, ; Sanchez‐Vazquez et al, ); (b), abattoir operator losses due to trimming and discarding of organs unfit for human consumption (Jäger et al, ; Sanchez‐Vazquez et al, ); and (c) lower carcass quality (Čobanović et al, ; Permentier et al, ). Despite the fact that numerous studies have revealed that pork quality is affected by many different factors, only a few papers have been published about the relationships between pneumonia, pleurisy (Dailidavičienė, Januškevičienė, Jukna, Pockevičius, & Kerzienė, ; Dailidavičienė, Januškevičienė, Zaborskienė, & Garmienė, ; Karabasil et al, ; Minkus, Schutte, von Mickwitz, & Beutling, ; Permentier et al, ), liver milk spots (Čobanović et al, ; Theodoropoulos, Deligeorgis, Fegeros, Papavasiliou, & Rogdakis, ) and pork quality.…”