Quantitative histological analysis of bovine small intestines before and after processing into natural sausage casings.

A histological study was undertaken to determine the efficiency in the removal of the mucosa and Peyer's patches by standard processing of bovine intestines into natural sausage casings. The second objective was to calculate the quantity of lymphoid and nervous tissue per consumable sausage. For the histological analysis, intestinal samples were collected from 80 beef cattle during the slaughter process. Fresh and cleaned intestines were compared in analyzing the thickness of the intestinal wall, weight reduction during cleaning, removal of the mucosal layer, and the presence of lymphoid and neural tissue after cleaning. The obtained data indicate a weight reduction of about 50% during standard cleaning procedures, as 90% of the mucosa and 48% of the lymphoid tissue are removed. Based on the quantitative histological image analysis, it was calculated that 1 m of cleaned casings, weighing on average 64 g, contains about 2.8 g of mucosa, 0.3 g of lymphoid tissue, and 0.1 g of neural tissue. Assuming, in a worst-case scenario, that the sausage casing is ingested when consuming 200 g of sausage at one meal, this consumption includes 0.09 g of lymphoid tissue and 0.02 g of neural tissue as part of the sausage casing. These data can be included in a risk assessment on the potentialexposure of consumers to bovine spongiform encephalopathy infectivity after eating sausages in beef casings.