Table 4.

Five general approaches for the study on the effect of somatic cells on dairy processes and products

Methods	Description of methods	Advantages	Inconveniences	References
(i)	Using individual milk with different SCC levels	Avoiding mixing different milk	Individual factors involved	Ma et al. (2000); Politis and Ng-Kwai-Hang (1988); Santos et al. (2002)
(ii)	Mixing healthy low-SCC milk with mastitic high-SCC milk	Easy and accurate to obtain different SCCs	Mastitic factors involved	Cooney et al. (2000); O’Farrell et al. (2002); Rogers and Mitchell (1994)
(iii)	Using originally mixed milk and classifying in different SCC categories	Classification of milk SCC is more reasonable	Individual and mastitic factors involved	Albenzio et al. (2004), (2011); Chen et al. (2010); Fernandes et al. (2008); Jaeggi et al. (2003); Somers et al. (2003)
(iv)	Isolating SCs from milk and studying their impact in the dairy products	Avoiding other causative factors in the study of SC roles	Limited quantity of SCs	Albenzio et al. (2009); Azzara and Dimick (1985a, b); Caroprese et al. (2007)
(v)	Concentrating SCs from milk and then adding these SCs with different quantities into milk with low SCC or without SCs	Avoiding other causative factors in the study of SC roles	Limited quantity of SCs	Marino et al. (2005); Sanchez-Macias et al. (2013)