Study on distribution and type of cardiac lesions in aborted lambs

Abstract

Histopathological lesions in the hearts of 44 aborted lambs were investigated 1) to determine the
percentage of injured hearts following abortion, 2) to determine the distribution and percentage of
lesion types in the hearts of aborted lambs and 3) To clarify the probable cause of abortion on the
base of histopathological cardiac lesions in Urmia, Iran. Of 44 lambs’ heart, 10 aborted lambs have
had normal hearts and 34 lambs revealed one or more lesions in their hearts. The percentages of
normal and injured hearts were 22.7 and 77.3%, respectively. Types of lesions in aborted lambs'
heart were hyperemia, myocardial necrosis, interstitial edema, watery degeneration,
haemorrhagia, hyaline degeneration and Purkinje degeneration. The distribution and percentage
of lesions in the injured hearts were 20 (26.7%), 20 (26.7%), 12 (16%), 9 (12%), 8 (10.7%), 4 (5.2%)
and 2 (2.6%), respectively. The percentage of lesions in the injured hearts were 58.8%, 58.8%,
35.3%, 26.5%, 23.5%, 11.8%, 5.8% and in whole lambs' heart were 45.5%, 45.5%, 27.3%, 20.5%,
18.2%, 9.2% and 4.6%, respectively. The highest distribution and percentage of lesion types in the
injured hearts were hyperemia and myocardial necrosis and the lowest was Purkinje cell
degeneration. In another words, up to half of the aborted lambs revealed hyperemic and
myocardial necrosis in their hearts. The distribution and percentage of injured hearts appeared
one, two, three and four lesions were 10 (29.4%), 18 (52.9%), 4 (11.8%) and 2 (5.9%), respectively.
According to the cardiac lesion types, the majority of aborted lambs have had primarily of
secondary cardiac lesions in that foot and mouth disease is the primary one and vitamin E&Se
deficiency could be the second one. It is concluded that types of cardiac lesions would be useful
in diagnosis, control and treatment of diseases if local history diseases support them.