Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:11:26.179Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The role of the veterinary diagnostic lab in the management of BRD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

R. G. Helman*
Affiliation:
Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab, 6610 Amarillo Blvd West, Amarillo, TX79106, USA
*
Author for correspondence: R. G. Helman, Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab, 6610 Amarillo Blvd West, Amarillo, TX 79106, USA. E-mail: ghelman@tvmdl.tamu.edu

Abstract

Veterinary diagnostic labs (VDLs) are important service agencies providing essential diagnostic testing for a wide variety of domestic animal species as well as wildlife. They serve key roles in disease monitoring and diagnosis as well as surveillance for diseases of consequence. Of the many roles VDLs serve, one is being a member of the larger team of professionals dealing with the management of the bovine respiratory disease (BRD) complex. VDLs provide a number of services related to the management of BRD. These include disease outbreak investigation, abnormal morbidity characterization, routine monitoring, and biosecurity screening for a variety of infectious agents via methods such as necropsy and histopathology, bacterial culture, antimicrobial sensitivity testing, virus isolation, and serological assays. VDLs continue to look for better methods and assays as instrumentation technology also grows and improves. This is reflected in the growing proliferation of molecular-based assays that provide a high degree of sensitivity and specificity. Professional staff in VDLs work in collaboration with those in academia and private industry to conduct basic research focusing on a different aspect of the BRD complex. VDLs remain a primary source of the varied field-origin infectious agents associated with BRD that are used for research purposes.

Type
Special issue: Papers from Bovine Respiratory Disease Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Fulton, RW and Confer, AW (2012) Laboratory test descriptions for bovine respiratory disease diagnosis and their strengths and weaknesses: gold standards for diagnosis, do they exist?. Canadian Veterinary Journal 53, 754761.Google ScholarPubMed
Lubbers, B (2015) Using individual animal susceptibility test results in bovine practice. Veterinary Clinics of North America Food Animal 31, 163174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rai, NR, Epperson, WB and Nanduri, B (2015) Application of functional genomics for bovine respiratory disease diagnostics. Bioinformatics and Biology Insights 9(Suppl. 2), 1323.Google ScholarPubMed