Scoring methods for respiratory tract lesions in pigs at slaughter

The complexity of respiratory diseases in pigs, which results from simultaneous infections with many microorganisms and environmental conditions in the pig facilities, leads to diagnostic difficulties. In order to assess the health status of the herd, monitoring is commonly used. It provides useful information, for example, about the seasonality of diseases, as well as the variety and dynamics of macroscopic lesions in the lungs depending on the preventive program used. One way to monitor respiratory diseases in pigs is to score lesions in the respiratory system. The scoring of lesions should be an integral part of diagnostic investigations. The aim of the paper is to describe and evaluate selected systems for the scoring of macroscopic lesions in the lungs during post-mortem examination. Some of these systems assess the severity of atrophic changes in the nasal cavity caused by infectious atrophic rhinitis in pigs. Another type of respiratory tract assessment is the evaluation (scoring) of lesions resulting from infection by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae in the course of mycoplasmal pneumonia of swine. A number of scoring systems and their modifications have been described in the literature for this type of lesions. Various methods have also been devised for the scoring of macroscopic lesions in the pig lungs described as pleurisy. Regardless of the method used, these examinations are useful diagnostically and complement other types of diagnostic examinations. They are important primarily in the course of subacute and chronic forms of disease or infections associated with atypical clinical signs.