Theoretical and experimental approaches to estimate the usefulness of pooled serum samples for the diagnosis of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome.

The article assesses the applicability of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to quantify Porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2) loads in pooled serum samples as an easy-to-use postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) diagnostic tool at the herd level. The study revealed that targeted sampling did not result in better estimations than random sampling. The researchers pointed out that the possibility to discriminate between truly PMWS cases and non-PMWS cases in a targeted sampling manner was compromised.