The effect of intrauterine infusion of dextrose on clinical endometritis cure rate and reproductive performance of dairy cows

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the intrauterine administration use of 200 mL of 50% dextrose solution as a treatment against clinical endometritis (CE); CE cure rate and reproductive performance were evaluated. Additionally, the association of several relevant risk factors, such as retained placenta (RP), metritis, CE, anovulation, hyperketonemia, and body condition score with reproductive performance, early embryonic mortality, and CE were evaluated. A total of 1,313 Holstein cows housed on 4 commercial dairy farms were enrolled in the study. At 7±3 DIM cows were examined for metritis and had blood collected to determine serum β-hydroxybutyrate concentration. To determine if cows had ovulated at least once before 44±3 DIM, the presence of a corpus luteum was evaluated by ovarian ultrasonography at 30±3 DIM and at 44±3 DIM. At 30±3 DIM, CE was diagnosed using the Metricheck device (SimcroTech, Hamilton, New Zealand); cows with purulent or mucopurulent vaginal discharge were diagnosed as having CE. Cows diagnosed with CE (n=175) were randomly allocated into 2 treatment groups: treatment (intrauterine infusion of 200 mL of 50% dextrose) or control (no infusion). Clinical endometritis cows were re-evaluated as described above at 44±3 DIM, and cows that were free of purulent or mucopurulent vaginal discharge were considered cured. Intrauterine infusion of dextrose tended to have a detrimental effect on CE cure rate, and treatment did not have an effect on first-service conception rate and early embryonic mortality. A multivariable Cox's proportional hazard model was performed to evaluate the effect of several variables on reproductive performance; the variables RP, CE, parity, anovulation, and the interaction term between parity and anovulation were associated with hazard of pregnancy. Cows that did not have RP or CE were more likely to conceive than cows that were diagnosed with RP or CE. Cows that had RP were at 3.36 times higher odds of losing their pregnancy than cows that did not have RP. In addition, cows diagnosed with CE were at 2.16 higher odds of losing their pregnancy than cows without CE. In conclusion, intrauterine infusion of 200 mL of 50% dextrose solution as a treatment for CE had a strong statistical tendency to decrease CE cure rate, did not improve first-service conception rate and early embryonic mortality, and did not decrease calving-to-conception interval.

Metritis diagnosis and treatment practices in 45 dairy farms in California

“…Researchers have evaluated prophylactic and treatment strategies for endometritis using nonantimicrobial intrauterine infusions with antiseptics (Nakao et al, 1988;Knutti et al, 2000;Lew and Kim, 2007), 50% dextrose (Machado et al, 2015), carvacrol (Pinedo et al, 2015), or enzymes (Drillich et al, 2005) as active ingredients; however, the benefits for reproductive efficiency were limited or nonexistent. Despite the lack of strong supporting scientific evidence, our study found that nonantimicrobial intrauterine treatments were widely adopted probably because they do not pose a risk for antimicrobial residues in milk or meat.…”

Effects of hypertonic dextrose and paraffin solution as non‐antibiotic treatments of clinical endometritis on reproductive performance of high producing dairy cows

“…Additionally, pregnancy per AI for dextrose group (29.2%) was significantly higher than that of the control group (22.5%), a difference that seems logical given the control did not receive any treatment (Maquivar et al, ). Machado et al () concluded that intrauterine infusion of 50% dextrose solution is not a good approach for treating CE and has no influence on first service conception rate, pregnancy maintenance and calving to conception interval (Machado et al, ). They observed the vaginal discharge by a Metricheck device and used a scoring system similar to that employed here.…”

Uterine inflammation affects the reproductive performance of dairy cows: A review

“…Clinical endometritis and retained placenta (which is the abnormal retention of fetal membranes after calving) also increased the probability of pregnancy losses. Cows with retained placenta had 3.36 times greater odds and cows with clinical metritis had 2.16 times greater odds of losing pregnancy than cows without those diseases (Machado et al, 2015).…”