Diagnosis of Uterine Infections in Mares: Comparative study of Uterine Cytology, Uterine Culture and Uterine Ultrasonography

Uterine infections and the associated endometritis are the most common cause of infertility in broodmares. Persistent Mating Induced Endometritis (PMIE) and Post-Breeding Metritis (PBM) account for the major causes of conception failure in broodmare practice. Mares that are affected are usually the best performing proven animals and therefore huge effort and money are utilized in their treatment. Timely diagnosis of such infections has a major impact on the success or otherwise of any treatment regimen followed. The present study was thus conceived to evaluate the diagnostic utility of uterine cytology, uterine culture and uterine Ultrasonography (USG) in detection of uterine infection in mares as well as to correlate the results obtained by these diagnostic techniques. The sensitivity and specificity of cytology, culture and USG in detection of uterine infections was found to be 71.42% and 69.23%, 100% and 100%, and 86.66% and50% respectively. The positive and negative predictive values for cytology, culture and USG were recorded to be 71.42% and 69.23%, 100% and 100%, 68.42% and 75.00% respectively. Individually uterine culture as a diagnostic tool was found to be most reliable for diagnosis of uterine infections, given that high considerations are given to aseptic processing milieu. The false positive and false negative results with uterine cytology and uterine ultrasonography were 28.57 and 30.76% and 31.57 and 25.00% respectively. The results of uterine cytology and uterine culture were found to be highly correlated (r=1.000, p<0.01), and so were that of cytology and ultrasonography, and culture and USG (r=1.000, p<0.01). However, the combination of uterine cytology and uterine culture was found to be most promising for routine diagnosis of uterine infections in mare, based upon χ² test.