Drægtighedsscanning af malkekvæg: sammenligning af scannings- og palpationsresultater

As a newly graduated veterinarian you will meet a lot of new challenges when going to work in practice. One of the challenges in the Danish cattle practice is pregnancy diagnosis at an early stage around 30-35 days after artificial insemination. Newly graduated veterinarians have only little clinical experience why it can be a big challenge to go out at the dairy farms and do the pregnancy diagnosis with a certain amount of security. The objective of the present study was to determine whether a senior veterinary student with an ultrasound scanner was able to obtain the same results at pregnancy diagnosis as an experienced inseminator examining per palpation. Pregnancy diagnosis were performed on 368 Holstein cattle (189 cows and 179 heifers) in nine different herds in the northern part of Denmark, first per palpation by the inseminator hence by the senior veterinary student using an E.I.Medical Ibex Lite ultrasound scanner with an 8,5 MHz linear probe. The two operators did not communicate within one herd, so no information was exchanged during the examinations. A positive pregnancy diagnosis by scanning was stated by the identification of a visible amniotic cavity with an embryo/fetus as a minimum. Of the 368 cases, seven (1,9 %) of the diagnosis were questionable (three for the inseminator and four for the senior veterinary student) and noted for later reexamination. These cases were chosen not to be considered part of the results, because they were to be reexaminated, and will thus be discussed and evaluated separately. Of the remaining 361 cases there were found 100 % agreement between the two operators, which means that the agreement on sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and kappa all with the value of one. Beside the unison agreement on pregnancy diagnosis, the ultrasound scanner showed to be valuable with extra information when scanning the uterus, such as twin pregnancy, beginning a