  The slaughterhouse is very useful in monitoring the health status of
livestock, the profitability of their breeding and the effectiveness of
therapeutic and/or prophylactic strategies. Over the years, a number of methods
have been developed to quantify lesions - especially those effecting the
respiratory tract, observed in slaughtered animals. Among these is the
"Slaughterhouse Pleurisy Evaluation System" (SPES), which is widely used to
score pleural lesions caused by Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. The aim of the
present study is to develop and assess an alternative method to score pleurisy
in slaughtered pigs, based on the inspection of the parietal pleura. This
method has been compared with the SPES grid, which is considered as the "gold
standard" in this field of study. Preliminary data indicate that the two
methods provide almost overlapping results, showing very high correlation
coefficients. Scoring pleurisy on the parietal pleura proved to be fast and
easy, it could represent a valuable alternative to the SPES method.
