[en] Animals ; Cattle ; Decision Support Systems, Clinical ;
Decision Trees ; Encephalopathy, Bovine
Spongiform/diagnosis/pathology ; Female ; Time Factors [en]
Reporting of clinically suspected cattle is currently the most
common method for detecting cases of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE). Improvement of clinical diagnosis and
decision-making remains crucial. A comparison of clinical
patterns, consisting of 25 signs, was made between all 30 BSE
cases, confirmed in Belgium before October 2002, and 272
suspected cases that were subsequently determined to be
histologically, immunohistochemically, and scrapie-associated-
fiber negative. Seasonality in reporting suspected cases was
observed, with more cases being reported during wintertime when
animals were kept indoors. The median duration of illness was 30
days. The 10 most relevant signs of BSE were kicking in the
milking parlor, hypersensitivity to touch and/or sound, head
shyness, panic-stricken response, reluctance to enter in the
milking parlor, ab