Evaluation of uterine culture, citology and biopsy in the mare

Bacteriologic cytological and histological examinations of the mare's uterus are routine aids to detect infections, and they and diagnostic tools in infertility cases. Our work, carried out on 59 mares during the breeding season 2002, shows that the interpretation of the results is not always easy and univocal. Uterine bacteriologic swabs were performed at oestrus: regarding cytology samples, two methods of collection were compared: guarded swabs and uterine flushing. In case of a history of infertility, biopsy specimens were also collected from cytological results, when cells were collected with a guarded swab, mainly because of the low quality of the samples. A higher agreement was found with cytology samples obtained by flushing, and with histology. Our results show the importance of performing and comparing all the three types of examination in order to be able to express a diagnosis, especially in old mares or in mares with an unknown history of infertility, or in mares suspected of having endometrial pathologies.