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Cited by 51Animal Disease Management and EpidemiologyData-Driven Disease SurveillanceVeterinary Medicine and Surgery

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The value of necropsy reports for animal health surveillance

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Küker, Susanne, Faverjon, Celine, Furrer, Lenz, Berezowski, John, Posthaus, Horst, Rinaldi, Fabio, Vial, Flavie·2018·BMC Veterinary Research
DOI 10.1186/s12917-018-1505-1PMC PMC6006731
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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Animal health data recorded in free text, such as in necropsy reports, can have valuable information for national surveillance systems. However, these data are rarely utilized because the text format requires labor-intensive classification of records before they can be analyzed with using statistical or other software. In a previous study, we designed a text-mining tool to extract data from text in necropsy reports. In the current study, we used the tool to extract data from the reports from pig and cattle necropsies performed between 2000 and 2011 at the Institute of Animal Pathology (ITPA), University of Bern, Switzerland. We evaluated data quality in terms of credibility, completeness and representativeness of the Swiss pig and cattle populations. RESULTS: Data was easily extracted from necropsy reports. Data quality in terms of completeness and validity varied a lot depending on the type of data reported. Diseases of the gastrointestinal system were reported most frequently (54.6% of pig submissions and 40.8% of cattle submissions). Diseases affecting serous membranes were reported in 16.0% of necropsied pigs and 27.6% of cattle. Respiratory diseases were reported in 18.3% of pigs and 21.6% of cattle submissions. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that extracting data from necropsy reports can provide information of value for animal health surveillance. This data has potential value for monitoring endemic disease syndromes in different age and production groups, or for early detection of emerging or re-emerging diseases. The study identified data entry and other errors that could be corrected to improve the quality and validity of the data. Submissions to veterinary diagnostic laboratories have selection biases and these should be considered when designing surveillance systems that include necropsy reports.

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  • A significant number of adult cattle that underwent necropsy were found to have succumbed to fatal pneumonia.

    “A significant number of adult cattle that underwent necropsy were found to have succumbed to fatal pneumonia [138,139,140].”

    From Strategies for Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) Diagnosis and Prognosis: A Comprehensive Overview (2024) · cites this paper as [139]

    The Results (Syndrome classification; page unavailable) report respiratory syndromes in 21.6% of cattle necropsy submissions, and the Methods list pneumonia as one diagnosis in that category. The paper does not establish that a significant number of adult cattle died specifically of pneumonia: the respiratory category includes other conditions, and its occurrence is not identified as the cause of death. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Metadata

Authors
Küker, S., Faverjon, C., Furrer, L., Berezowski, J., Posthaus, H., Rinaldi, F., & Vial, F.
Affiliations
  • University of Bern (CH)
  • University of Zurich (CH)
Corresponding author
Küker, Susanne
ORCID
Venue
BMC Veterinary Research
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-06-18
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
191-191
ISSN
1746-6148 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12917-018-1505-1
PMC
PMC6006731
OpenAlex
W2808784083
Cited by
51
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4
FWCI
6.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Veterinary Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
Funders
Bundesamt für Lebensmittelsicherheit und Veterinärwesen (1.14.03)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Data-Driven Disease Surveillance
  • Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Veterinary Medicine and Surgery
Keywords
autopsy reports, animal health monitoring, text mining, data quality, selection bias, veterinary diagnostic laboratories, gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory diseases, emerging and re-emerging diseases
MeSH terms
Animals, Autopsy, Cattle, Cattle Diseases, Female, Health Status Indicators, Health Surveys, Male, Software, Swine, Swine Diseases, Syndrome, Information Storage and Retrieval, Data Mining

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