Pathological and microbiological studies on pneumonic lungs from Danish calves

During 1 year, the association between microbiological and pathological fin dings in 72 lungs from calves submitted to the Danish Veterinary Laboratory for diagnostic purposes was studied. All cases mere evaluated pathological ly and bacteriologically, whereas only 68 cases were examined for the prese nce of bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), parainfluenza-3 virus (PI -3 virus) and bovine coronavirus, 62 cases for bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVD), 45 cases for bovine adenovirus and 51 cases for mycoplasmas. Based on histopathological examination, the cases were diagnosed as fibrinous and /or necrotizing bronchopneumonia, suppurative bronchopneumonia, embolic pne umonia and others. The diagnoses were based on the dominating and most seve re lesions in each lung. Haemophilus somnus, Pasteurella multocida, Actinom yces pyogenes, P. haemolytica and BRSV were the most commonly found bacteri al and viral lung pathogens, respectively. Pasteurella spp. and H. somnus w ere often associated with the more severe fibrino-necrotizing type of bronc hopneumonia, whereas BRSV was primarily detected in cases of suppurative br onchopneumonia, Mycoplasma bovis was isolated from one case only, whereas M dispar, M bovirhinis and Ureaplasma diversum were present, often concomita ntly in the majority of cases. Aspergillus fumigatus was isolated from one case.