Scoring shoulder ulcers in breeding sows – is a distinction between substantial and insubstantial animal welfare-related lesions possible on clinical examination?

Table 1 Criteria for the histopathological characterisation of shoulder ulcers (modification of Jensen 2009)

	Stage
Tissue	0	1	2	3	4	5^a
Epidermis	Intact	Necrotic or missing	Necrotic or missing	Necrotic or missing	Necrotic or missing	Often absent
Dermis		Necrosis limited to the superficial dermis	Necrosis of the major part, residues of hair follicles and glandular structures	Necrotic or missing		Granulation tissue, fibroplasia
Subcutis		No lesions	No necrosis	Necrotic, excessive granulation tissue, microabscesses		Granulation tissue, fibroplasia
Bone			Slight proliferation of cambium possible	Reactive cambium and thickened, periosteal bone formation	Demarcated by excessive granulation tissue, “unprotected”^b	Often thickened, sometimes granulation tissue
Muscle^c			No lesion	Suprascapular muscles with fibrosis	Severely atrophied muscles	No lesion

^aHealed ulcer
^bOverlying tissue is missing
^cParts of surrounding shoulder girdle muscles (M. trapezius or M. deltoideus)

ISSN: 2055-5660