Ozonioterapia e sua relação com a saúde da glândula mamária de bovinos da raça holandesa

Abstract

Mastitis plays an important role in the dairy industry and its treatment is challenging due to the diversity of antimicrobial-resistant agents. With this in mind, the aim of this study was to evaluate the reduction in cellularity in milk using different counting techniques, the reduction in cases of subclinical mastitis, the lower rate of contaminated animals, bacteriological cure and the maintenance of mammary gland health. For this purpose, 50 milk samples from the mammary quarters of 44 Holstein cows were used. Ozonated gas was applied to the naturally infected mammary tracts intramammary after the gas was removed from the OZONEVET® generator. The concentration used was 35µg, in a total of 4 applications with 48-hour intervals between them, in accordance with the recommendations of the manufacturer of the ECCOVET® device. In order to assess the effectiveness of the treatment, milk was collected for automatic somatic cell count (SCC) analysis, SCC by direct microscopy using the Prescott & Breed method and the California Mastitis Test (CMT) and microbiological examination using the MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry technique. The data was analyzed using GraphPad Prism® software in version 9.5.1. The significance level was considered to be p < 0.05. The ozone therapy treatment resulted in a reduction in the CMT test scores between days 1 and 8, referring to a reduction in milk cellularity (p=0.0001). The median for the results on day 1 was 3 (3-4), while the median for day 8 was 2 (1-3). The mononuclear and polymorphonuclear cell count using the Prescott & Breed method showed a reduction in cellularity when comparing day 1 and day 8 (p=0.0001). The median mononuclear cell count (cels/mL) on day 1 was 736,000 (576,000-920,000) and when compared to day 8, there was a reduction in the number of cells to 424,000 (244,000 - 728,000). Polymorphonuclear cells showed a reduction in count when comparing day 1 496,000 (304,000-598,000) with day 8 which resulted in 200,000 (112,000-392,000). For the automatic somatic cell counts (cels/mL), median values were found on day 1 of 2,108,000 (679,000-4,783,000) and on day 8 of 2,393,000 (790,000-4,969,000) (p=0.1923) with no statistical difference between times M1 and M8. The results achieved in the microbiological analysis of milk (MALDI-TOF) indicated a reduction in positive results between baseline (79.3%) and after ozone therapy (48.2%). It can be concluded from the results that ozone therapy improves the health of the mammary gland by acting positively on defense cells, favoring an increase in macrophages and reducing neutrophils, reducing CMT test scores and reducing positive cases in microbiological analysis.The technique can therefore be used in the field to improve mammary gland health, reduce the use of medication and consequently reduce costs and significantly improve milk quality.