Significance of serum pepsinogen value in close-up dairy cattle as a displaced abomasum predictive marker: a case-control study.

The purpose of this study was to compare serum pepsinogen (PEP) and gastrin (GA) values in close-up cattle that developed displaced abomasum (DA) after calving and those that did not develop DA, and further examine whether serum PEP value as much as non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) concentration are useful as a predictor for DA. This study was conducted as a case-control study at a single dairy farm (approximately 200 cows kept) in Hokkaido, Japan, from May 2009 to June 2013. Fifty-two cattle between 2 and 21 days before calving, developed DA within 30 days postpartum, were assigned to the DA group. The controls were 108 clinically healthy cattle that did not develop any periparturient diseases including DA and were matched for days in milk and parity with the DA group. Body condition score (BCS) and rumen fill score (RFS) were also assessed. Serum PEP and GA values in DA group were significantly lower than those in controls. There was no significant difference in BCS and RFS between the two groups. Risk of DA was 10.9 times higher in cows with PEP values of ≤700 mU than in those with higher values and was 2.8 times higher in cows with NEFA concentrations ≥0.5 mEq/L than in those with lower concentrations. Evaluation of DA prediction using usual and rotated receiver operating characteristic curves showed the significance of both PEP and NEFA, with PEP being more superior. The accuracy of the combined model using PEP and NEFA was higher than each alone.