Traumatic Reticulitis
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Description
Due to their unselective feeding habits, cattle may injest a variety of foreign bodies. Heavier metallic objects consumed can become lodged in the reticulum, and may penetrate the reticular wall under the influence of the continuous reticular movements. This is enhanced in pregnancy and parturition.
Pathological changes depend on the direction of penetration; this is usually in an anterior-ventral direction. Pyogenic bacteria escape from the reticulum, causing localised peritonitis, local fibrinous adhesions Penetration of the diaphragm and pericardium resulting in pericarditis.Penetration of the heart itself resulting in myocarditis and endocarditis Penetration of the lungs and pleura resulting in pneumonia and pleurisy Liver and splenic abscesses
Signalment
Diagnosis
Clinical Signs
Signs are often vague, but adult cattle will show a drop in milk production and fecal output is decreased. The rectal temperature is often mildly increased. The heart rate is often increased, and respiration is usually shallow and rapid. Initially, the cow exhibits abdominal pain with an arched back; and a reluctance to move often with abducted elbows.
grunting on the "bar test".
Pathogenesis
- Cattle cannot spit out metallic agents (e.g. screws, nails, pieces of wire, bottle tops)once in their mouths, and so ingest them.
- Objects often become sharper in the reticulum due to reticular juices.
Pathology
Pericardium is enormously thickened with oedema, and purulent fluid containing fibrin clots accumulates in the sac giving “bread and butter heart” - classical traumatic reticulitis.
Large abscesses in the dorsal part of the liver may erode into posterior vena cava to produce thrombosis.
- * Very thick-walled, pus-filled abscesses form around points of penetration, which may be multiple.
- The foreign object may be found in one of these abscesses, or free in the reticular lumen