Comparison of intramammary ozone administration doses in dairy cows with clinical mastitis

ABSTRACT

Background: Mastitis is an economically important disease leading cost associated problems. The most accurate relationship between intramammary infection and somatic cell count (SCC) can be evaluated at quarter level when SCC exceeds 100.000 cells/mL. In subclinical mastitis, pathogens do not cause enough disruption in the alveolar tissue to be seen in the milk but SCC increase indicates the infected milk. Ozone (O3 ) is an unstable polymerized oxygen created by the passage of air or oxygen over high energy electrodes within an ozone generator system or by ultraviolet light. The aim of this study was to compare the treatment efficacy of ozone (O3 ) insufflation daily via latex free syringe in different doses (30-60-70 µg/mL) and high dose O3 insufflation (70 µg/mL) with combination of antibiotic and only antibiotic treatment in dairy cows with clinical mastitis.Materials, Methods & Results: A total of 32 lactating cows with clinical signs of mastitis whom had got 79 infected mammary quarters were used for the study. Mastitis was diagnosed by typical clinical symptoms of the mammary gland and general clinical symptoms of systemic infection. California mastitis test (CMT) was performed to all quarters and recorded before the treatment. Somatic cell count (SCC) of each milk sample of the infected quarters was recorded before the treatment. Microbiological examination was conducted on aseptically collected milk samples from infected quarters before the treatment. Ozone insufflation was applied daily in different doses (30, 60 and 70 µg/mL) intramammary via latex free 100 mL syringe every day for one week and only antibiotic was administered intramuscularly to the mastitic cows for 5 days and high dose ozone insufflation (70 µg/mL) with combination of antibiotic therapy after milking of the animals. On day 8; CMT and SCC were repeated to evaluate the efficacy of the treatments on the milk samples.[...]