Classification of Vertebral Osteomyelitis and Associated Judgment Applied during Post-Mortem Inspection of Swine Carcasses in Portugal.

Vertebral osteomyelitis (VO) it is often a suppurative lesion that, in Portugal, represents the main cause of total condemnation of slaughtered finishing pigs. Based on the EU Meat Inspection legislation, meat from generalized VO cases presenting signs of pyemia should be declared unfit for human consumption. For that reason, the main objective of this study is to establish a classification scheme to differentiate between localized and generalized VO cases using macroscopic findings and validate it based on the presence of pyemia.