Treatment of Clinical Mastitis: Local And/or Systemic? Short or Long?

Mastitis is the most common reason for antimicrobial treatment of dairy cows (Grave et al. 1999; Mitchell et al. 1998). Antimicrobials have been used to treat mastitis for more than fifty years, but consensus about the most efficient, safe, and economical treatment is still lacking. The concept of evidence based medicine has recently been introduced to veterinary medicine (Cockcroft & Holmes, 2003) and those principles should apply also to treatment of mastitis. The impact on public health should also be taken into account. The aim of this paper is to review current treatments of clinical mastitis during lactation and seek for evidence-based, best practice treatment recommendations for that common disease of dairy cattle.