Comparison between computed tomography (CT) and dissection in order to measure the lean meat percentage of pig carcass cuts

Dissection is the European reference method for measuring the lean meat percentage of pigs. Computed tomography (CT), a medical imaging technology, could now replace dissection, if results are comparable. The aim of this study was to compare a French CT procedure with the EU dissection method for measuring cuts’ lean meat percentage. A representative sample of 63 pig left sides was jointed into the four primal cuts. These cuts were CT scanned and then dissected. Image analysis was performed using a very simple method, considering the same threshold for all the images.The best results were firstly for the cuts’ weight, secondly for the cuts’ muscle weight and lastly for the cuts’ lean meat percentage.Nevertheless, for the cuts’ lean meat percentage correlations ranged between 0.95 and 0.98. The regression of dissection on CT has given a residual standard deviation of 0.86 % lean, which corresponds to a relative error of 21 %. The worst results were found for the belly. This study shows that CT can accurately measure the lean meat percentage of the main cuts even with a simple method. Furthermore, this CT procedure could be used for calibrating the French CT in the pig classification framework.Nevertheless, the automation of image treatment and the detection of the different tissues deserve further improvement.