Comparative assessment of two tests for early pregnancy detection in dairy cattle

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine and compare the accuracy of two tests for early pregnancy diagnosis in dairy cattle by measuring pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAG), the Rapid Visual Pregnancy Test (Ubio quickVET; VPRT) and the commercial ELISA-PAG test (Bovine Pregnancy Test DG29®). Blood samples were collected from 180 cows between 28 and 35 days after artificial insemination (AI) to quantify the concentrations of PAG in each sample. Both tests were performed on plasma within two days after blood collection. Transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) was performed for pregnancy diagnosis after 40 ± 3 days post-AI as a gold standard. Results indicated that the sensitivity (Se) of the VPRT and DG29 for diagnosing pregnant cattle were 90% and 100%, respectively. The specificity (Sp) of the two tests for diagnosing non-pregnant animals was 90.2% and 82%, respectively. The accuracy of both tests was 94% and 90%, for DG29 and VPRT respectively. The ability of both tests to distinguish between pregnant and non-pregnant cows was excellent. This implies that the VPRT test could be considered more accurate than the PAG-ELISA test and TRUS on days 28–35 after AI. The VPRT test, therefore, can be used as an alternative to the PAG-ELISA test with some constraints that need to be considered.

Keywords

• bovins laitiers
• diagnostic de gestation
• glycoprotéine associée à la gestation
• test de gestation visuel rapide
• elisa