An outbreak of proliferative hemorrhagic enteropathy in a commercial pig
farm, characterized by
granulomatous enteritis, was studied by slaughter checks and by histopathological, histochemical and immunohistochemical studies. Six of the postmortem examined
pigs (117-122-day-old) with
diagnosis of porcine proliferative enteropathy (PPE) showed
granulomatous enteritis and 4.3% of the 465 slaughtered
pigs showed gross lesions of PPE. A total of 33 of the 66
ileum samples had histopathological changes, whereas 17 of them had
granulomatous enteritis and PPE lesions.
Lawsonia intracellularis was immunolabeled in 52 of the
ileum samples in
epithelial cells and within granulomatous
inflammation in Peyer´s patches and in 28 samples of mesenteric
lymph nodes.
Porcine circovirus type 2 was only detected by
immunohistochemistry in 4
ileum samples and in 5 mesenteric
lymph nodes. Since there was a strong statistically significant
association between
granulomatous enteritis and L. intracellularis
infection,
granulomatous enteritis could be considered as a part of the PPE complex.(AU)