Venous and arterial ammonia in dairy cows with fatty liver and hepatic failure
Mudron, P.(Univerzita Veterinarskeho Lekarstva, Kosice (Slovak Republic))E-mail:pmudron@hotmail.com | Rehage, J.(School of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover (Germany). Clinic for Cattle) | Holtershinken, M.(School of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover (Germany). Clinic for Cattle) | Scholz, H.(School of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover (Germany). Clinic for Cattle)
Seventy-five Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were used in this study aimed to evaluate the differences between arterial and venous plasma ammonia concentrations in dairy cows with fatty liver and hepatic failure. Clinical examinations revealed liver failure in 14 cows. Diagnosis of hepatic failure was based on the clinical signs of hepatic encephalopathy, including anorexia, depressed consciousness, ataxia, somnolence, and coma, and on venous plasma ammonia (more than 35 micromol/L). The other cows were divided according to their liver triglyceride concentration (wet tissue) into the following groups: low triglycerides (less than 30 mg/g, n=24), medium triglycerides (30-100 mg/g, n=31), and high triglycerides (more than 100 mg/g, n=6). Both arterial and venous plasma ammonia levels were highest in cows with hepatic failure (93.0+/-44.9 and 70.4+/-34.1 micromol/L, respectively). We observed that arterial ammonia was significantly higher than venous ammonia (P less than 0.01) only in the dairy cows suffering from liver failure, implying a higher informative value of arterial ammonia in detection of liver function damage in cattle demonstrating signs of hepatic encephalopathy.
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