Footbaths for the Treatment or Control of Hairy Heel Warts (Digital Dermatitis) in Dairy Herds: Summary of Seven Studies

Online databases and search engines were used to identify published research on footbathing for digital dermatitis treatment and/or control. Clinical trials were included in this summary if they: (1) Were published after the most recent review paper on this subject was submitted for publishing, 2004 (Laven and Logue 2006); (2) The studies described the treatment groups; (3) The investigators used evaluation of digital dermatitis lesions as an measurement of treatment success, included prevalence of DD before and after treatment period, measured incidence of new DD lesions during the treatment period, and/or severity of DD lesions before and after the treatment period; and (4) Footbath solutions evaluated in the experiments contained a non-antibiotic disinfectant.