Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences

Review Article
Adv. Anim. Vet. Sci. 4 (6): 283 - 288
Http://dx.doi.org/10.14737/journal.aavs/2016/4.6.283.288
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Mridula Sharma1*, Nishant Sharma2

1VGO, CVASC, Pantnagar Uttrakhand; 2VO Uttarakhand, India.

Abstract | The knowledge of the reproductive physiology of estrus cycle is important for animal management and in order to determine the reproductive and productive potential of animals. The stage of the estrus cycle was predicted through the morphologic, endocrine and secretary changes occurring in the ovaries and the tubular genitalia during the estrous cycle, which had been associated with levels of steroid sex hormones. Vaginal cytology is a simple technique that can be used by practitioners to characterize stages of the reproductive cycle, disease conditions of genital tract and is a useful tool in determining optimum mating time (standing heat) in bitches. Many researchers studied the variations that occur in the vaginal mucosa at different phases of estrus cycle in bitch, sheep, goats, swine, cow etc. by using vaginal smears. The vaginal epithelial cells are classified into three cell types according to the differences in their sizes as a superficial squamous cells (40-65um diameter) with light cytoplasm, intermediate squamous cells (20-40um diameter) and parabasal cells (12-15um diameter or four type’s viz. parabasal, intermediate, superficial intermediate and superficial cells. The relative proportion of different types of vaginal epithelial cells can be used as a marker of the endocrine environment as under the influence of estrogen, the epithelial cells accumulate large amount of glycogen and undergo rapid cell proliferation in the basal and parabasal layers and more number of superficial squamous cells are produced. Increased number of neutrophils and endometrial cells in vaginal smear is shown to be related with metritis in cow. A vaginal smear during pregnancy is characterized by few intermediate cells, small number of R.B.C. and moderate to large number of polymorphonuclear cells. The vaginal cytology may be used clinically to evaluate the stage of estrous cycle, hormonal status, disease condition of genital tract.

Keywords | Vaginal cytology, Cow, Sheep, Bitch, Reproductive cycle