Brain microabscesses in a porcine model of Staphylococcus aureus sepsis

Table 1 Experimental design and pathological changes in Staphylococcus aureus inoculated pigs

Group no.	Pig no.	Inoculation	Euthanisia	Number of brain microabscesses	Suppurative meningitis	Suppurative choroiditis
1	1	0 h	12 h	4	0	0
	2	0 h	12 h	8	+	0
	3	0 h	12 h	0	+	+
	4 (control)	0 h, mock	12 h	0	0	0
2	5	0 h + 12 h	24 h	3	+	+
	6	0 h + 12 h	24 h	10	++	+
	7	0 h + 12 h	24 h	2	++	+
	8 (control)	0 h + 12 h, mock	24 h	0	0	0
3	9	0 h + 12 h	48 h	1	+++	+++
	10	0 h + 12 h	48 h	0	+	+
	11	0 h + 12 h	48 h	3	+++	+++
	12 (control)	0 h + 12 h, mock	48 h	0	0	0

In the nervous tissue the number of microabscesses was counted and summed up for each animal. The infiltration of neutrophils in the meninges and in the choroid plexus was scored on a semi quantitative scale. The semi quantitative score of each pig was found by this method: Ten fields with the tissue of interest were randomly sampled in each section from each pig. The fields were examined at 40× objective. The number of neutrophils in the tissue of interest were counted in each field and summed up for all sections to yield a total number for each pig. Based on this total number of neutrophils each pig was then scored on the following scale: 0 = ≤ 15; + = 16 – 50; ++ = 51 – 100; +++ = ≥100.

ISSN: 1751-0147