Bone Marrow Fat Analysis
To Support a Diagnosis of Starvation/Malnutrition
Summary: Making a definitive diagnosis of
starvation in animals is difficult because there are few quantitative measures
of starvation available at post-mortem examination. The Section of Toxicology
and Analytical Chemistry has developed a method which can be used to relate
severely decreased bone marrow fat to clinical malnutrition.
Method: In this method, the fat content is
determined from the bone marrow of the right femur using a modification of the
AOAC published procedure for crude fat analysis. This procedure involves
drying the sample in vacuo and extracting the bone marrow fat
using pentane.
Average bone marrow fat content for
normal adult cattle, dogs, sheep, pigs and horses:
Species |
n |
Mean |
Range |
Cattle |
18 |
91.54% |
83.21-101.22% |
Dogs |
15 |
81.53% |
65.23-98.48% |
Sheep |
7 |
91.31% |
83.35-95.52% |
Pigs |
4 |
81.27% |
72.35-91.52% |
Horses |
13 |
85.90% |
62.06-99.33% |
Note: These average values should be used in
conjunction with the results of a complete post-mortem evaluation for the
diagnosis of malnutrition/starvation.
Cases Submitted to the ADDL:
Average bone marrow fat content in selected cases
suspected of malnutrition (as of Nov, 2006)
Species |
n |
Mean |
Range |
Cattle |
6 |
18.82% |
0.47-67.11% |
Sheep |
1 |
7.89% |
7.89% |
Goats |
5 |
14.12% |
1.52-40.12% |
Cervids |
2 |
1.53% |
0.21-2.86% |
Horses |
3 |
47.24% |
37.91-64.44% |
Submission: To submit a sample for analysis,
submit a whole femur from the affected animal.
by
C. Wilson, Interim Chief Analytical Chemist
K. Meyerholtz, Toxicology Technician
S. Hooser, Head, Toxicology Section
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