In Denmark, lesions indicating acute generalised infection identified at meat inspection will result in total condemnation. An official bacteriological examination (BU) protocol can be used for slaughtered animals with lesions such as endocarditis and endophlebitis as an assisting diagnostic tool to confirm whether the condition is local or generalised. If local, the carcass can be approved after condemnation of the relevant organs. The BU involves cultivating samples from the spleen and muscle. The aim of this study was to assess the value of the BU protocol.

The study was conducted from February to May 2019 at a Danish cattle abattoir. Three groups of slaughtered cattle were included: 24 cases consisting of cattle with endocarditis and endophlebitis, 25 control animals consisting of cattle fully approved at inspection and 16 animals condemned at inspection due to endocarditis and endophlebitis with complications. Samples were taken from the heart, liver, kidney, lung, spleen and muscles of each animal. The BU protocol was used for cultivation. Different types of colonies were identified using MALDI-TOF-MS analysis.

One or more samples with bacterial growth were found in all condemned animals – in 16 out of the 24 case animals and in two out of 25 control animals. In all three groups, Trueperella pyogenes was the most frequently isolated bacterium (60%) followed by Fusobacterium necrophorum (10%). For the case animals, the organ most commonly found with bacterial growth was the liver (46%), followed by the lung (38%) and the kidney (38%), while 96% of the muscle samples were negative. For the condemned group, bacterial growth was found in 75% of the spleen samples, 56% of liver and lung samples, and 50% of the muscle samples. A statistical analysis of the samples from cases and controls showed strong pair-wise associations for the presence of bacteria between organs, but no pair-wise associations between presence of bacteria in the muscle and any of the organs. Hence, if bacteria are found e.g. in the liver, they are likely to be found in other organs, but not in the muscle. In total, 20 of the 24 case animals were fully or partly approved in accordance with the current rules for judgement.

It was concluded that the BU protocol using spleen and muscle samples would be suitable as a diagnostic tool for the judgement of slaughtered animals in cases where there is doubt about the stage of the lesions observed.

在丹麦，肉类检查中发现的表明急性全身感染的病变将导致全面谴责。正式的细菌学检查（BU）协议可用于屠宰有诸如心内膜炎和内胚层炎等病变的动物，作为辅助诊断工具，以确认病情是局部的还是普遍的。如果是局部的，可以在相关器官谴责后批准approved体。BU涉及从脾脏和肌肉中培养样品。这项研究的目的是评估BU协议的价值。

该研究于2019年2月至2019年5月在丹麦牛屠宰场进行。包括三组屠宰的牛：24例患有心内膜炎和内膜炎的牛，25例对照动物，包括经检查充分批准的牛，以及16例由于心内膜炎和内膜炎并发并发症而被定罪的动物。从每只动物的心脏，肝脏，肾脏，肺，脾脏和肌肉中取样。BU协议用于培养。使用MALDI-TOF-MS分析鉴定出不同类型的菌落。

在所有定罪的动物中发现一种或多种细菌生长的样品-24例动物中有16例，而25例对照动物中有2例。在所有三个组中，化脓性疟原虫是最常见的细菌（60％），其次是坏死镰刀菌（10％）。对于这种动物，最常见的细菌生长器官是肝脏（46％），其次是肺（38％）和肾脏（38％），而96％的肌肉样本呈阴性。对于死刑组，在75％的脾脏样本，56％的肝和肺样本以及50％的肌肉样本中发现细菌生长。对来自病例和对照的样品的统计分析表明，器官之间存在细菌存在很强的成对关联，但肌肉和任何器官中细菌的存在之间没有成对关联。因此，如果在例如肝脏中发现细菌，则很可能在其他器官中发现细菌，但在肌肉中没有发现细菌。根据目前的判断规则，总共有24只动物中有20只得到了全部或部分批准。

结论是，在对观察到的病变阶段有疑问的情况下，使用脾脏和肌肉样本的BU方案将适合作为判断屠宰动物的诊断工具。