Mastitis
Mastitis is a $5 billion problem worldwide. There has been little change to the methodology (Somatic Cell Count, or SCC), used to diagnose mastitis, and to monitor its incidence, over the last 15 years. The more recent availability of flow cytometry has improved the understanding of cell sub-populations in milk, particularly of its neutrophil populations. Researchers have pointed to the differential inflammatory cell counts as superior to the SCC for evaluation of udder health. However, a flow cytometer is impractical on an agricultural site. Currently most SCC testing is done at a remote location, but an indirect, non-specific test, SCC equivalent, is done on-site.
Advanced Animal Diagnostics (AAD) has preliminary data demonstrating that our technology can provide a fresh milk SCC, as well as a differential count of the inflammatory cells which make up the SCC. AAD has applied for US federal government funds to continue this research. The eventual product will be a simple, portable, rugged, inexpensive “on-site” diagnostic milk-analysis device, which will require minimum operator judgment, and which will be more accurate, and provide more information, than existing laboratory-based tools, especially at low Somatic Cell counts.
The technology utilizes direct imaging identification of each cell, making it less susceptible to background interferences. In summary, the AAD technology will bring to the farm a level of performance previously available only in a sophisticated laboratory.
The picture on the right depicts the side-by-side identification of the two predominant cells in an early mastitis infection, a bacteria-fighting neutrophil and an epithelial cell. Current Somatic Cell Count methods, both the remote, direct laboratory measurement and the indirect, on-site, SCC-equivalent measurement, would yield a non-specific “two somatic cells” as a result.
Potential benefits of an on-site “inflammatory milk cell differential” in the management of the herd are:
- More reliable, reproducible information is provided by differential indexes vs. the total Somatic Cell Count index alone
- Improved ability to stage and describe the disease in more detail
- A clearer and more objective definition of milk quality
- An improved predictor of milk loss
- Improved herd diagnostics for high SCC herds and those with infectious mastitis, providing a useful indicator for choosing which cows to culture.
- Leveraging the more detailed definition of milk quality to the payment of incentive bonuses, minimizing potential producer-processor disputes and distrust
- Ability to differentiate a chronic infection from an acute infection
- Ability to isolate infected quarters
AAD market research indicates that the availability of all this new diagnostic information at the milking parlor will alter actions taken on a farm.