Intas Polivet (2013) Vol.

14 (II): 411-414 Clinical Article

Efficacy of Autogenous Vaccine and Auto-hemotherapy in

Bovine Cutaneous Papillomatosis
Rakesh Ranjan1, S.P.S. Ghumman2, G.R. Bhatt2 and R.S. Singh
Department of Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex
College of Veterinary Sciences
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University
Ludhiana - 141004 (Punjab)

Abstract
Efficacy of autogenous vaccine and auto-hemotherapy were tested in cattle suffering from papillomatosis. Five
doses of autogenous vaccines were injected on day 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 to each animal. For auto-hemotherapy, 10 ml of
venous blood was injected intramuscularly on weekly interval for four weeks. The animals given autogenous vaccine
alone took two months to recover, while animals given both autogenous vaccine and auto-hemotherapy recovered
within one and a half month. Results of the present study suggest that autogenous vaccine is useful for therapeutic
purposes in bovine papillomatosis and auto-hemotherapy can serve as an useful adjunct by enhancing regression
rate of papillomas.
Keywords: Auto-hemotherapy; autogenous vaccine; cattle; papillomatosis
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Introduction mastitis and teat infections (Singh and Somvanshi,

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Cutaneous papillomatosis is a benign 2010).

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proliferative neoplasm caused by papilloma virus

belonging to the family Papovaviridae (Jelinek
and Tachezy, 2005). Cutaneous papillomas
usually appear as multiple, sessile or
pedunculated, circumscribed grey-white to dark
brown black outgrowth, which may be smooth
surfaced, spherical or horny (Singh et al., 2009).
Papillomas may appear on skin over different body
parts, but neck, eyelids, teats and lower line of
abdomen are the most common sites. It is a
contagious disease, usually transmitted via direct
contact, contaminated food and equipment, flies,
castration and injections. Although the papillomas
usually regress spontaneously within 1 to 14
months due to the animal’s immune response
without significant scarring, they occasionally can
persist and progress to squamous cell carcinoma
(Campo et al., 1994). Furthermore, papillomavirus
infection in cattle could be connected with
disorders of the metabolism, probably secondary
to damage of the liver and kidney (Lesnik et al.,
1999). Papillomas on teats may cause difficulty in
milking and suckling by calf and sometimes,
pedunculated papillomas snap-off causing
1. Assistant Professor and Corresponding author
E-mail: rakesh_ranjan3@rediffmail.com
2. Department of Veterinary G ynaecology and
Obstetrics
Several treatment options like antimony
preparations (Dileepkumar and Ansari, 2012),
homeopathic drugs (Umadevi and Umakanthan,
2013), autogenous vaccines (Rao et al., 2000),
and ivermectins (Borku et al., 2007) have been
tried with varying degree of success. The present
report describes successful management of
bovine papillomas by two different theraputic
regimens.
Description
The study was carried out in a private dairy farm,
housing about 110 cattle and 205 buffaloes. The
owner reported that about 5 months back,
papillomas were observed in a newly purchased
cattle. Since there was only few small papillomas
and the cattle was lactating, the owner did not
bother for its segregation or treatment. But, after 3
months, several young animals developed the
disease. At the time of first observation, one heifer
had numerous large papillomas located mostly
over the neck, eyelids, pinna, face and abdominal
region (Fig. 1). It was advised to segregate the
animal from the herd. Six other animals were also
suffering from the disease, the four were
moderately affected with 20-30 large papillomas
in the neck region and few ocassional small
papillomas over other body parts. The other two

411
 Bovine cutaneous papillomatosis
cattle had very small 5-10 small papillomas in the
neck and abdominal region. The four moderately
affected animals were selected for the treatment
and the rest two were left untreated to serve as
positive control. Out of four animals, two received
only autogenous vaccine (group 1) while two other
received autogenous vaccine alongwith auto-
hemotherapy (group 2). All six animals were kept
isolated in a shed located in the corner of the
dairy farm.
For preparation of autogenous killed vaccine,
papillomas with different colour and morphology,
i.e. sessile and pedunculated, dark and light
coloured were collected after surgical incision
randomly from all the four animals. They were
trichurated using a mortar and pestle. Twenty
gram of the trichurated papilloma tissues was
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mixed with 500 ml sterile Normal Saline Solution
and the mixture obtained was filtered using
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Fig. 1: Heifer severely affected from papillomatosis
Fig. 3: Regressed warts after autogenous vaccine
and auto-hemotherapy
412
Whatman filter paper no. 1. Formalin solution (2
ml) and 1.5 g gentamicin sulfate was added to the
mixture and the solution obtained was stored at
40C for 2 days (Fig. 2). Thereafter, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
ml of this autogenous vaccine was administered
subcutaneously to each animal on day 1, 3, 5, 7
and 9 respectively. For auto-hemotherapy, 10 ml
of venous blood was collected by jugular
venipuncture and injected deep intramuscularly
in the same animal at weekly interval for four
weeks. No adverse reaction of vaccination or auto-
hemotherapy was observed in any animal. Marked
improvement in the condition was noted after 3
weeks in both groups, characterized by
progressive degeneration of wart tissues,
shedding of old papillomas and non-appearance
of fresh warts (Fig. 3). However, the rate of
regression of warts was slow in group 1 as
compared to group 2 animals. Almost complete
Fig. 2: The prepared autogenous vaccine
recovery was recorded after one and a half months
in group 2, while it took about 2 months in group 1
animals to achieve complete recovery. In one
untreated control animal, slight increase in number
and size of warts were observed, while no
appreciable change in number of size of
papillomas were recorded in another control
animal. The heifer with severe papillomatosis,
which was segregated from the herd and not
included in the present study, died after 3 months.
Discussion
Bovine papillomatosis is a contagious cutaneous
viral disease of cattle caused by Bovine
Papillomavirus (BPV). There are ten well
 Ranjan et al.
characterized types of BPV-1 to 10. The
co-infection by multiple BPV is also common
which is responsible for variation in morphology
of the papillomas developing in the affected animal
(Freitas et al., 2011). In the present study, size,
shape and colour of papillomas were variable,
suggesting involvement of several types of bovine
papilloma viruses.
The pathogenesis of papillomatosis is governed
by several factors including inheritance, nutritional
and hormonal disorders, sunlight and
suppressed immune system (Campo et al., 1994).
There is significant relationship between
development of papillomas and immune status of
the host. The disease occurs in severe form in
mostly immunocompromised patients. This
phenomenon is well documented in human
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papillomatosis (Lutzner, 1985). Papillomas most
often regress spontaneously. However, it may
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occasionally persist and in the presence of
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additional critical genetic or environmental factors,
can progress to cancer (Campo et al., 1994). The
regression of papillomas is mediated by cellular
immunity. Paulik et al. (2001) noted that
blastogenic activity of lymphocytes decrease in
bulls suffering from persisting cutaneous
papillomatosis and use of autologous vaccine led
to continual regression of the tumors and gradual
elevation of lymphocytic activity. Unfortunately, no
effective commercial prophylactic or therapeutic
vaccines against papillomatosis are available in
the Indian market (Maeda et al., 2007). By large,
autogenous vaccines are used for therapy that
gives variable response (Sreeparvathy et al.,
2011). The autogenous vaccines stimulate the
immune system against the papilloma viruses. The
variation of response may be attributed to type of
virus involved, developmental stages of
papillomas, method of collection of papilloma
tissues and preparation of vaccine, schedule of
administration and immune function of the patient.
In the present study, rapid regression of warts in
group 2 animals suggested that auto-
hemotherapy is helpful by augmenting the effects
of autogenous vaccine. Auto-hemotherapy for
treatment of chronic diseases in human beings is
an age old practice, but has gained limited public
acceptability (Wallis, 1947; Olwin et al., 1997).
413
However, there seems paucity of reports available
on use of auto-hemotherapy in veterinary practice.
Auto-hemotherapy was reported to cause
complete cure of papillomatosis in a cattle
(Kumar, 2011). Auto-hemotherapy is believed to
stimulate the reticulo-endothelial system and to
increase population of macrophages in circulating
blood, which might be responsible for enhancing
regression rate of the papillomas. Concurrent
administration of parammunity inducers support
rapid regression of warts and enhancing efficacy
of autogenous vaccines (Inayat et al., 1999; Turk
et al., 2005). However, further large-scale study
is required to elucidate the mechanism of action
of auto-hemotherapy.
From the present study, it can be concluded that
autogenous vaccine is effective in treatment of
bovine papillomatosis. Auto-hemotherapy may
serve as a useful adjunct to autogenous vaccine.
These two therapeutic modalities are low cost and
easy to follow, hence can be applied at field level.
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