Background: Data on the performance of a glucometer in calves with different diseases are currently lacking. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the reliability of a point of care glucometer in calves affected by different diseases relative to a traditional bench-top autoanalyzer. Animals: One hundred ninety-six calves with different disorders in a referral hospital. Methods: Prospective study. Venous blood samples were used for the determination of glucose concentrations in blood and plasma using the Freestyle Optium Neo H and autoanalyzer, respectively. Data were subjected to Passing-Bablok regression and Bland-Altman plots. The Freestyle Optium Neo H was the test method and the autoanalyzer was the reference method. The diagnostic performance of the glucometer relative to the autoanalyzer was assessed using 3 different plasma glucose concentrations. Results: The Passing-Bablok regression for the glucometer against the reference method revealed the presence of both proportional bias (1.12; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07-1.18) and constant bias (−11.25; 95% CI, −16.0 to −7.70). The glucometer yielded 92.2%-100% sensitivity and 86.4%-96% specificity for the assessing glucose concentration based on different concentration thresholds. Conclusions and Clinical Importance: The Freestyle Optium Neo H showed proportional and constant biases relative to the reference method. The glucometer showed poor performance according to criteria recommended by the International Standards Organization and the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology. However, the glucometer determined hypoglycemia with high sensitivity and specificity therefore it might be used to diagnose hypoglycemia in calves with different diseases until calf-specific POC glucometers are developed.

Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition, and it is frequently complicated by myocardial damage. Data on myocardial damage in rabbit caecal ligation and puncture (CLP) models are limited, although numerous animal models have been used to study sepsis-associated myocardial damage. This study aimed to investigate the effect of CLP on cardiac muscle by measuring serum cardiac troponin I (cTnI) concentrations and by detecting both histopathological changes and cTnI immunoreactivity in cardiomyocytes in rabbits. After CLP was performed in rabbits, blood samples were taken from the jugular vein at 0, 4, 8, and 12 h for haematological and biochemical analyses. At the end of the experiment, all of the rabbits were euthanised to examine the histopathological changes and the cTnI immunoreactivity in cardiac muscle tissue. No changes in serum cTnI concentration were observed in the experimental group (EG) or control group (CG) at 0 and 4 h. In EG, the mean serum cTnI concentrations were 0.230 ± 0.209 and 1.177 ± 0.971 ng/ml at 8 and 12 h, respectively. In CG, the mean serum cTnI concentrations were 0.032 ± 0.014 and 0.031 ± 0.021 ng/ml at 8 and 12 h, respectively. Moreover, cytoplasmic cTnI immunoreactivity decreased in EG compared with that in CG (P<0.01). The results demonstrated that CLP induced a systemic inflammatory response and caused myocardial damage in rabbits.