Treatment of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniaeinfected pigs experimentally inoculated with Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and Pasteurella multocida type A

D Dallanora1, RL Pierozan2, JD Kich3, GS Machado1, A Coldebella3, N Mors3, RMC Guedes4 Integrall Solues em Produo Animal, Belo Horizonte; 2Novartis Sade Animal, So Paulo,Brazil; 3Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Sunos e Aves CNPSA/EMBRAPA, Concrdia-SC; 4Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Introduction
Active respiratory disease causes severe production losses. As a result, it is a big challenge to define the more effective combination of drugs for the control of respiratory problems caused by mixed infection, such as Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (M. hyo), Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (App) and Pasteurella multocida type A (PmA). The main objective of this work was to evaluate the overall therapeutic efficacy of tiamulin (Denagard), in association with chlortetracycline (CTC), in comparison to tilmicosin and florfenicol, for the control of respiratory problems caused by mixed infection.

21. Clinical signs, rectal temperature and cough index were evaluated during the trial. Post mortem examination was performed in all animals in order to evaluate macroscopic (abscesses, nodules, pleurisy, lung consolidation) and microscopic lung lesions (histopathology, bacteriology and immunohistochemistry).

Results and discussion

Macroscopic lung lesion area: TIA+CTC and tilmicosin were the most efficient treatments to prevent lung lesions (refer Table 1). The biggest difference among groups was observed when comparing % of lung lesion area between TIA+CTC and florfenicol (p<0.05). Under the conditions of this trial, there were no significant differences between TIA+CTC and the other groups regarding the presence of lung abscesses and nodules. Regarding pleurisy, there were also no significant differences among treatments. Clinical parameters: after day 23, both control and florfenicol groups had higher coughing indexes than TIA+CTC and tilmicosin (p<0.05). From day 26 to the end of the trial, the TIA+CTC group showed the lowest coughing indexes. Those were significantly different to the control and florfenicol groups (p<0.05), but did not differ from the tilmicosin group

(p>0.05). On day 28 (three weeks after PmA inoculation and one week after App6 inoculation), although not statistically different, it should be noticed that the TIA+CTC group had less pigs with the worst clinical score (severe clinical signs) compared to tilmicosin group (1 vs 4 pigs, respectively). Both florfenicol and control groups showed much worse overall clinical health conditions after Day 21 (one week after the first inoculation) when compared to TIA+CTC and tilmicosin. There was no difference in rectal temperature among all medicated groups. Microscopic parameters: TIA+CTC had significantly more negative pigs (11 pigs) and the lowest number of highly positives as measured by immunohistochemistry, when compared to the other groups (p=0.0082). Bronchopneumonia lesions: there were no differences between TIA+CTC and tilmicosin treated pigs regarding the incidence of animals diagnosed with bronchopneumonia, but TIA+CTC group had significantly less animals presenting bronchopneumonia when compared to the control (p=0.0065) and also with florfenicol (p=0.0485).

Materials and methods

Sixty-eight pigs (not vaccinated against M. hyo) with the same age and origin were randomly distributed in four groups with 17 pigs each, balanced by weight, as follows: Control nontreated pigs; treated with Florfenicol (Nuflor) at 40 ppm; treated with Tiamulin (Denagard) at 100 ppm associated with CTC at 400 ppm (TIA+CTC); and treated with Tilmicosin (Pulmotil) at 200 ppm. The treated groups received medicated feed from days 14 to 28. In each group, 8 pigs randomly selected out of the 17 pigs were inoculated intra-nasally with PmA on day 7, and with App6 on day

Conclusion
Based on clinical parameters, macroscopic and microscopic evaluation, TIA+CTC showed a high degree of efficacy for the control of mixed respiratory disease involving Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, App and PmA. This efficacy was equivalent to that of tilmicosin and superior to that of florfenicol treatment.

Table 1. Lung lesion area as recorded for all treatments (Mean standard error)
Treatments Control Florfenicol Tiamulin + CTC Tilmicosin
a,b indicate statistical difference (p<0,05)

Mean standard error 13.76 2.06a 15.41 2.06a 3.852.00b 5.69 2.06b

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