¹Erciyes University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Wild Animal Diseases, TR-38280 Kayseri - TÜRKİYE
²Erciyes University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, TR-38280 Kayseri - TÜRKİYE
³Yozgat Bozok University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, TR-66700 Yozgat - TÜRKİYE DOI : 10.9775/kvfd.2025.34986 Respiratory system infections are one of the most critical problems that can cause serious economic losses and mortality in cattle breeding. Our study aimed to investigate the significance of endocan levels, which have been shown to yield successful outcomes in predicting prognosis in various respiratory disorders in human medicine, as a reliable prognostic biomarker in calves affected by enzootic pneumonia (EP). The study also examined the efficacy of lactate levels and a modified respiratory scoring system (MSS) in predicting death, alongside endocan levels. Calves with EP (n=53) and healthy calves (n=27) were included in the study and only single blood sample was collected from each calf in the study. Blood samples were taken from the EP group prior to treatment. Our investigation revealed that endocan levels were considerably lower in calves with EP compared to healthy calves (P<0.001). Our study assessed the diagnostic and prognostic significance of endocan and lactate levels in calves with EP using ROC analysis. The cut-off values for endocan and lactate employed in illness prediction were <70.41 (AUC=0.734, P=0.001) and >2.55 (AUC=0.842, P<0.001), respectively. Cut-off values for mortality prediction were >64.96 for endocan (AUC=0.657, P=0.052), >3.90 for lactate (AUC=0.940, P<0.001), and >7.5 for MSS (AUC=0.848, P<0.001). We concluded that endocan had limited diagnostic utility. However, the modified scoring system showed considerable efficacy in predicting mortality. Furthermore, lactate levels have been shown to exhibit superior accuracy and clinical value for both diagnosis and prognosis. Keywords : Endocan, Enzootic pneumonia, Lactate, Modified respiratory scoring system, Prognostic biomarker