The Use of Inflammatory Markers in Field Cattle Medicine

Numerous cow-side diagnostic tests are available for bovine practitioners. Many of these tests serve etiologic purposes such as quick test for diarrhea or measures of metabolites directly linked to pathologies (BOH or ions Ca++, Na+, K+, etc.). Beside these interesting elements, inflammation, which is either a cause or a consequence of a specific disease, is often forgotten. This presentation will refresh the practitioner’s knowledge on the assessment of inflammation in cattle by using inflammatory markers assayed with laboratory and cow-side tests. The interpretation of these markers can be sometimes delicate (bias) and might not necessarily lead to a prognosis. Depending on the age of the animal, some inflammatory markers can also serve as diagnosis for other purposes such as the evaluation of passive immunity transfer in calves.