Papillomatous digital dermatitis in a Holstein-Friesian bull

Abstract

Extract Papillomatous digital dermatitis (PDD) is an infectious and contagious disorder of housed, adult dairy cattle. The ensuing lameness is often severe and results in significant economic loss, mainly due to decreased milk production (Hernandez et al 2002 Hernandez, J , Shearer, JK and Webb, DW . 2002. Effect of lameness on milk yield in dairy cows. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 220: 640–643. [Google Scholar] ). The disease, first described some 30 years ago in Italy (Cheli and Mortellaro 1974 Cheli, R and Mortellaro, C . 1974. “La dermatite digitale del bovino”. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Diseases of Cattle, 208–213. Milan. [Google Scholar] ), has since been reported in many other European countries (Peterse et al 1982 Peterse, DJ , Cornelisse, JL and Toussaint-Raven, E . 1982. “Dermatitis digitalis”. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Diseases of Cattle, 830–832. Amsterdam. [Google Scholar] ; Blowey and Sharp 1988 Blowey, RW and Sharp, MW . 1988. Digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. Veterinary Record, 122: 505–508. [Google Scholar] ), North America (Rebhun et al 1980 Rebhun, WC , Payne, RM , King, JM , Wolfe, M and Begg, SN . 1980. Interdigital papillomatosis in dairy cattle. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 177: 437–440. [Google Scholar] ; Read et al 1992 Read, DH and Walker, RL . 1998. Papillomatous digital dermatitis (footwarts) in California dairy cattle: clinical and gross pathologic findings. Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, 10: 67–76. [Google Scholar] ; Borgmann et al 1996 Borgmann, IE , Bailey, J and Clark, EG . 1996. Spirochaete-associated bovine digital dermatitis. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 37: 35–37. [Google Scholar] ) and Australia (McLennan and McKenzie 1996 McLennan, MW and McKenzie, RA . 1996. Digital dermatitis in a Friesian cow. Australian Veterinary Journal, 74: 314–315. [Google Scholar] ), though not in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom and North America, PDD is the most common skin lesion observed in association with bovine lameness.