Isolamento de bactérias do útero de éguas utilizando o lavado da coleta de embriões

Abstract

Endometritis is the most common cause of infertility and subfertility in mares. The infectious type has been shown to be recurrent in embryo transfer programs. There are different tests for diagnosing this uterine alteration, such as culture and uterine cytology. Techniques like uterine lavage have become an alternative for diagnosis, as it allows to obtain samples for cytology and culture. Recently, the use of high-volume uterine lavage has been demonstrated as an alternative for diagnosing endometritis. Therefore, this study aims to associate the high volume lavage (HVL) with the embryo flushing technique in donor mares, to isolate and characterize bacteria in terms of species and antimicrobial resistance, comparing the results with the low volume lavage (LVL) lavage technique in the same animals. In this project, 28 mares participated and were subjected to both HVL and LVL techniques. The recovered samples were used for cytology and culture tests. Then, all data were computed, and statistical analyses were performed using Fisher's Exact Test to obtain a comparative result. The results demonstrated similar efficacy between the techniques of both groups, HVL and LVL for bacterial isolation. When analyzed the presence of an embryo influenced presence or absence of bacteria in the culture test, no difference was found between the groups. In the cytology analysis, only 4 tests (7.14%), 1 in HVL and 3 in LVL, showed neutrophils. From the HVL and LVL groups, 38 different bacteria were isolated, and 18 (47.36%) of them exhibited multidrug resistance. Therefore, the HVL technique combined with embryo flushing can be an alternative for bacterial isolation for cytology and culture tests, assisting in the diagnosis of sub fertile mares.