Characterization of vesicular glands, study of vesiculitis and its association with other accessory sex glands in bulls

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to elucidate histological characteristics of the vesicular glands as well as to investigate vesiculitis and its association with ampolititis and prostatitis. Sex gland samples from 40 bulls were collected. The vesicular glands were descriptively evaluated, the number of acini was counted in an area of 25mm2, compared to the number of acini between healthy and pathological glands, the data were submitted to the Student's T test at 5%. Inflammatory tissue was investigated in the ampullae of the vas deferens and in the prostates, the chi-square test at 5% was performed to assess the association between the inflamed glands. Regarding inflammation in the gland (vesiculitis), 30 animals (75%) were positive. The vesicular glands presented an average of 355 ±76.4 acini/25mm2. When comparing the amounts of acini between the glands with and without vesiculitis, no significant difference was observed, p=0.930. When performing the chi-square test to assess the association between vesiculitis and ampolititis or vesiculitis and prostatitis, the results were p=0.356 and p=0.300 respectively. Despite the high incidence of inflammatory reaction in the glands, no association was observed between the accessory sex glands studied here.