Discriminant value of blood and urinary corticoids for the diagnosis of scrapie in live sheep.

The mean (sd) concentration of plasma 20β-dihydrocortisol in 126 scrapie.affected sheep was 5.5 (7.0) ng/ml compared with 1.1 (0.7) ng/ml in 52 healthy sheep. The mean (sd) concentration of creatinine in the urine of 93 scrapie.affected sheep was 2.43 (1.56) pg/ml compared with 0.94 (0.86) μg/mI in 49 healthy sheep and 1.10 (0.95) μg/ml in 25 sheep with other diseases. These discriminant analyses carried out on healthy and scrapie.affected sheep showed that plasma 20β-dihydrocortisol and urinary creatinine were the best predictors of the disease, and classified correctly 98 per cent of healthy sheep and 82 per cent of scrapie.affected sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]