A growing number of severe infections are related to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, therefore, in recent years, alternative antimicrobial materials based on silver nanoparticles (NPs) attracted a lot of attention. In the current research, we present a medical patch prototype containing diamond-like carbon nanocomposite thin films doped with silver nanoparticles (DLC:Ag), as a source of silver ions, and an aqueous mass of the gelatin/agar mixture as a silver ion accumulation layer. The DLC:Ag thin films with 3.4 at.% of silver were deposited on synthetic silk employing reactive unbalanced DC magnetron sputtering of the silver target with argon ions performed in the acetylene gas atmosphere. The average size of the silver nanoparticles as defined by scanning electron microscope was 24 nm. After the film deposition, the samples were etched with RF oxygen plasma, aiming at efficient silver ion release in aqueous media from the nanocomposite film. In the patch prototype, a mixture of agar and gelatin was applied in silicone carrier with cavities, acting as a silver ion accumulation layer that further enhanced the antimicrobial efficiency. It was found that the DLC:Ag thin film on the silk after soaking in water for 24 h was able to release up to 4 ppm of Ag. The microbiological experiments using S. aureus bacteria were performed with the patch prototype and the silver ion saturated water, demonstrated the inactivation of 99% and 79% of bacteria, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that silver NPs destroyed the bacteria cell and the bacteria affected by Ag ions had spots and perforated cell wall areas with cytoplasm leakage out was obtained. A preliminary preclinical study using the laboratory animals demonstrated that using the patch prototype, the methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA)-infected wound on skin surface healed faster compared with control and was able to kill all MRSA bacteria strains in the wound’s bed after 72 h of treatment.

Background: Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is recognized worldwide as an important and economically devastating pathogen in pig production. Although PRRSV is widespread in domestic swine, there is a lack of information regarding PRRSV infection in European wild boars ( Sus scrofa ). Currently available information does not provide conclusive evidence that wild boars are a reservoir of PRRSV. Nevertheless, wild boars may be likely to become infected by domestic swine through occasional direct or indirect contact. Furthermore, wild boars can act as a reservoir for infectious diseases of domestic pigs. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were to determine the virus prevalence and further explore the epidemiology and diversity of PRRSV strains present in Lithuanian wild boars over a 5-year period. A total of 1597 tissue and serum samples from wild boars inhabiting 44 districts and ten counties in Lithuania were analysed using conventional nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and real-time Taqman RT-PCR for the detection of PRRSV-specific open reading frame (ORF) 1 and 6 sequences. Results: PRRSV was highly prevalent in Lithuanian wild boar populations, with an average rate of 18.66 % using conventional RT-PCR and 19.54 % using real-time RT-PCR. PRRSV was detected in 36.71 and 41.77 % of 237 hunting grounds tested by conventional RT-nPCR and real-time RT-PCR, respectively. No statistically significant differences in PRRSV prevalence were observed by geographic area in the ten Lithuanian counties. Animals infected with PRRSV were identified in all age groups; however, significantly higher prevalence rates were identified in subadult and adult wild boars than in juveniles up to 12 months old. No positive results were obtained using conventional PCR with Type 2 specific primers. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial ORF5 region revealed that ten wild boars harboured virus sequences belonging to genetic subtypes 3 and 4 and may therefore pose a serious threat to Lithuanian pig farms in which only subtype two strains are circulating. Conclusions: The results of virus prevalence and phylogenetic analyses strongly support the role of wild boars as a possible natural reservoir for PRRSV in Lithuania.

Digital technologies that continuously quantify animal behavior, physiology, and production offer significant potential for the early identification of health and welfare disorders of dairy cows. In this study, a multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) framework is proposed for real-time health monitoring of dairy cows through the integration of physiological, behavioral, production, and thermal imaging data, targeting veterinarian-confirmed udder, leg, and hoof infections. Predictions are generated at the cow-day level by aggregating multimodal measurements collected during daily milking events. The dataset comprised 88 lactating cows, including veterinarian-confirmed udder, leg, and hoof infections grouped under a single ‘sick’ label. To prevent information leakage, model evaluation was performed using a cow-level data split, ensuring that data from the same animal did not appear in both training and testing sets. The system is designed to detect early deviations from normal health trajectories prior to the appearance of overt clinical symptoms. All measurements, with the exception of the intra-ruminal bolus sensor, were obtained non-invasively within a commercial dairy farm equipped with automated milking and monitoring infrastructure. A key novelty of this work is the simultaneous integration of data from three independent sources: an automated milking system, a thermal imaging camera, and an intra-ruminal bolus sensor. A hybrid deep learning architecture is introduced that combines the core components of established models, including U-Net, O-Net, and ResNet, to exploit their complementary strengths for the analysis of dairy cow health states. The proposed multimodal approach achieved an overall accuracy of 91.62% and an AUC of 0.94 and improved classification performance by up to 3% compared with single-modality models, demonstrating enhanced robustness and sensitivity to early-stage disease.

Journal of Animal Science and Technology (JAST) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal publishing original research, review articles and notes in all fields of animal science. Topics covered by the journal include: genetics and breeding, physiology, nutrition of monogastric animals, nutrition of ruminants, animal products (milk, meat, eggs and their by-products) and their processing, grasslands and roughages, livestock environment, animal biotechnology, animal behavior and welfare.

This article discusses a study performed with an aim to determine the usefulness of diffusion-weighted MRI in pre-treatment assessment and evaluation of chemotherapy response of mediastinal lesions of malignant lymphoma by analysing signal intensity, accumulation of contrast agent and changes in values of ADC. Comparing the results of PET/CT and DW-MRI was another goal of this study. We reviewed data of 21 patients that underwent treatment during years 2013-2014 at the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics and had DW-MRI and PET/CT scans carried out. For all patients the diagnosis of malignant lymphoma in mediastinal lymph nodes was confirmed histological. Whether the lymphoma was in active state was determined by PET/CT or histological data. In MRI scans, signal intensity and ADC values were evaluated, while in PET/CT maximum and average standardized uptake values were assessed. Patients underwent chemotherapy and follow up scans were performed to evaluate response. In total, 25 PET/CT and 50 DW-MRI scans were analysed. We found statistically significant difference of values of ADC in active and inactive states of malignant lymphoma of mediastinal lymph nodes. In follow up tests, performed during 2 years after treatment, a tendency of decreasing ADC values over time was seen when chemotherapy was successful and no relapse was observed. Among the reviewed cases, DW-MRI had slightly worse specificity than PET/CT in differentiation of malignant and benign changes in lymph nodes.

This study evaluated infrared thermography (IRT) as a dual-purpose, non-invasive tool for detecting limb pathology and subclinical mastitis in dairy cows. Surface temperatures were measured at the coffin, pastern, and fetlock regions of all limbs and at the teat surface of all udder quarters. Limb health status was determined by orthopedic clinical examination, and mastitis status was assessed using the California Mastitis Test (CMT). Hindlimbs were significantly warmer than forelimbs in healthy cows (p < 0.001), with confirmed bilateral symmetry (r = 0.524–0.569). Limbs with pathology showed significantly higher temperatures at all anatomical sites, with particularly large effect sizes in the hindlimbs (r around 0.80). Additional lesion-specific analyses demonstrated that both infectious and claw horn lesions exhibited significantly higher temperatures than healthy limbs. In the hindlimbs, infectious lesions showed higher thermographic values than claw horn lesions. CMT-positive quarters showed teat temperatures of 30.0–30.2 °C compared with 25.2–25.8 °C in CMT-negative quarters (p < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated excellent diagnostic performance for teat surface temperature in identifying CMT-positive quarters, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.956. The optimal threshold was 29.5 °C, corresponding to a sensitivity of 0.992 and a specificity of 0.838. Each 1 °C increase in teat temperature increased the odds of CMT positivity by 5.3-fold (p < 0.001). A practical three-zone thermographic framework was established: <27 °C (healthy), 27–29.5 °C (monitoring recommended), and ≥29.5 °C (mastitis likely). Teat temperature was not associated with composite milk somatic cell count, but hindlimb pathology was independently associated with elevated teat temperatures (partial r = 0.23–0.26, p ≤ 0.001). These findings demonstrate that IRT has strong potential as an integrated screening tool for dairy cow limb health and udder health monitoring.