Animalcare has launched Emdocam (meloxicam 20mg/ml), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) of the oxicam class for use in cattle, pigs and horses.Animalcare has launched Emdocam (meloxicam 20mg/ml), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) of the oxicam class for use in cattle, pigs and horses.

According to the company, Emdocam disrupts the inflammatory cascade by inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis. It is a potent and preferential inhibitor of COX-2, permitting sufficient COX-1 sparing activity. It has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. When administered in a single dose to cattle, it has long acting anti-endotoxic, anti-pyretic and anti-inflammatory effects for up to three days.1,2

In cattle, it is indicated for bovine respiratory disease (BRD), clinical mastitis and calf scour. Animalcare says early use of meloxicam for BRD reduces pyrexia and pain, especially in young calves and improves feed intake. Meloxicam plus an antibiotic significantly reduced the extent of lung lesions, leading to improved clinical efficacy and daily liveweight gain in comparison with animals treated with antibiotics alone, for example oxytetracycline,3 florfenicol4and tilmicosin. 5

In the case of clinical mastitis, Animalcare says that used adjunctively with an antibiotic, Emdocam helps relieve local and systemic inflammation, returns the udder to a normal condition and reduces the polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMN) response. In a large scale, double-blinded study in New Zealand, the addition of meloxicam to antibiotic therapy resulted in lower Somatic Cell Counts and a reduced risk of culling in dairy cows with mild clinical mastitis.6

Calf scour treated with meloxicam, as a supportive therapy, can improve calf well-being and reduce morbidity. In a double-blinded, controlled study, the use of meloxicam improved daily water and feed intake, added greater average bodyweight (bw) gain and helped calves to wean earlier. 7

In horses, administered IV at 3.0ml/100kg bw, Emdocam can be used for musculo-skeletal disorders, as well as colic, resulting in reduced pain and inflammation. In a study of 18 horses comparing flunixin with meloxicam and designed to determine the effect on recovery of ischemic-injured jejunum, meloxicam was found to be a useful alternative for the post-operative treatment of colic. 8

Emdocam is also indicated in pigs for non-infectious locomotive disorders and as an adjunctive therapy with an antibiotic in puerperal septicaemia and toxaemia (mastitis-metritis-agalactia syndrome).

Tony Liepman from Animalcare said: "Emdocam is competitively priced whether used on its own or adjunctively with a long-acting intramuscular (IM) antibiotic, such as Florgane suspension for the treatment of BRD in calves. This, coupled with its long lasting, low volume (2.5ml/100kg bw in cattle), single dose administration, by intravenous (IV) or subcutaneous (SC) injection, makes Emdocam a highly efficacious and practical  NSAID." 

Emdocam is a POM-V medicine and available as 50 and 100ml multi-dose vials. Withdrawal period in cattle for meat and offal is 15 days and in pigs for meat and offal is 5 days. In horses for meat and offal it is 5 days. In Florgane [POM-V], the withdrawal period for meat and offal is 37 days in cattle and not to be used in cattle producing milk for human consumption

References

   Cattle

  1. Salamon E. et al., Effects of meloxicam on thromboxane levels in calves with experimentally induced endotoxaemia. Cattle Practice (2000) 8, 1.
  2. Friton G. et al., Clinical efficacy of meloxicam (Metacam®) inlactating cows with acute mastitis. Proc. XXII World Buiatrics Congress (2002) 427-259.
  3. Friton G.M. et al., Long-term effects of meloxicam in the treatment of respiratory disease in fattening cattle. Veterinary Record (2005) 156, 809-811.
  4. Bardella I. et al., Effects in treatment of respiratory diseases of calves with a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). Proc. XXII World Buiatrics Congress (2002) 140-189. 
  5. Schmidt H. et al., Effekte der zusatzlichen Gabe von Metacam® (meloxicam) auf den Krankheitsverlauf bei Rindern mit akuten Atemwegserkrankungen. Praktischer Tierarzt (2000) 81:3, 240-244.
  6. McDougall S. et al., Effect of treatment with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory meloxicam on milk production, somatic cell count, probability of re-treatment and culling of dairy cows with mild clinical mastitis. J. Dairy Science (2009) 92: 4421-4431.
  7. Todd D.R. et al., An evaluation of meloxicam (Metacam®) as an adjunctive therapy for calves with neonatal calf diarrhoea complex (2007) J. Animal Sci; 85, (Suppl 1): 369.


    Horses
  8. Little D. et al., Effects of the cyclooxygenase inhibitor meloxicam on recovery of ischemia-injured equine jejunum. Am. J. Vet. Res. (2007) 68, No. 6, 614-624

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