Abstract

The objective of the present study was to determine the accuracy and the negative prediction value of Pregnancy-Associated Glycoprotein (PAG) at 29 d post artificial insemination by ELISA. Blood serums of multiparous Holstein cows were used (n = 275). Pregnancy diagnosis was carried out by rectal palpation at 40 d and it was considered as reference test. Pregnancy results based on the PAG-ELISA and the pregnancy diagnosis at 40 d showed high concordance with a kappa value of 0.7. The accuracy test based on PAG-ELISA at 29 d post artificial insemination compared with pregnancy diagnosis by rectal palpation was 88%. The values of sensibility, specificity, positive prediction value, negative prediction value and positive and negative likelihood ratio were 96, 78, 83 and 95%, 4.5 and 0.0442, respectively. It is concluded that pregnancy diagnosis of PAG-ELISA is reliable and accurate at 29 d post artificial insemination. The PAG-ELISA's negative prediction value diminishes the number of days in subjecting cows diagnosed as nonpregnant to diverse strategies of hormonal synchronization protocols.

Keywords:

Dairy cattle, pregnancy diagnosis, pregnancy-associated glycoprotein, rectal palpation,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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The authors have no competing interests.