Disease diagnosis in horses involves the identification and characterization of illnesses through various diagnostic methods and tools. This process is essential for effective veterinary care and management of equine health. Techniques used in diagnosing diseases in horses include clinical examinations, laboratory tests, imaging modalities such as ultrasonography and radiography, and molecular diagnostics. Blood tests are frequently utilized to assess parameters such as complete blood count and biochemical profiles, which can indicate underlying health issues. Additionally, advancements in genetic testing and biomarker identification have enhanced the ability to detect specific diseases early. This page aggregates peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore diagnostic methodologies, their applications, and their impact on equine health management.
Jeffcott LB.The survey comprised 443 horses, referred to the clinical department of the Equine Research Station, with a history of a thoracolumbar (TL) complaint. A wide range of lesions were capable of producing back problems and more than one condition or site of injury was found in 75 animals (17 per cent). There were 103 horses (19.7 per cent) with no evidence of damage to the TL spine or its associated structures. In 66 of these cases, clinical signs were attributed to a variety of hindlimb lamenesses and, in 37, no specific diagnosis could be made. Soft tissue injury was diagnosed in 203 cases (38.8...
Benson TJ, Nerem RM, Pedley TJ.Time dependent wall shear rates cannot be directly or accurately measured in arteries using presently available techniques. Here a simple method is presented for calculating them from a single measured velocity waveform (either centreline or cross-sectionally averaged velocity). The method involves only Fourier analysis and the application of given formulae, and it is expected to be approximately valid in any segment of artery which has no branches or sharp curves for a distance of several diameters. It is shown, however, that a frequency response of 30 Hz is required in the velocity measuring...
Pemberton DH, Thomas KW, Terry MJ.The prevalence of hypogammaglobulinaemia in 82 young foals was determined. Twelve foals were considered clinically abnormal at birth and ten died within two weeks. All of these foals were hypogammaglobulinaemic. Seven (10%) of the other 70 apparently normal foals were hypogammaglobulinaemic despite having suckled normally. Three of these foals developed significant disease and one died at one month of age. Rapid detection of foals with low serum immunoglobulin levels was achieved by adapting the zinc sulphate turbidity test to partially evacuated blood collection tubes. This permitted test to ...
Wingfield WE, Miller CW, Voss JL, Bennett DG, Breukels J.Echocardiography is a non-invasive, safe means of assessing intracardiac structures and their motion. In the normal motion of the mitral valve there is anterior motion noted during atrial systole. In 3 horses with atrial fibrillation the mitral valve motion had no anterior motion to correspond with atrial contractions. Quinidine returned the electrocardiogram of one horse to a sinus rhythm after which echocardiography demonstrated the reappearance of the anterior motion of the mitral valve.
Otani S, Arimitsu Y, Akama K.Antileptospiral sera from hyperimmunized horses were fractionated by gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 or by starch block electrophoresis. The fractions were examined quantitatively for leptospiricidal, agglutinating and complement fixing activities. The leptospiricidal activity was higher in the 78 globulin fraction than in the 19S globulin fraction, while the agglutinating activity was shared by both the fractions being higher in the 19S fraction. Complement fixing activity was found evenly in both the fractions. Leptospiricidal and complement fixing activities were higher in gamma-globulin t...
Moore JN, Garner HE, Shapland JE, Hatfield DG.Effects of a sublethal IV dose (10 micrograms/kg of body weight) of Escherichia coli endotoxin were studied in 7 conscious ponies. Arterial blood gases and plasma lactic acid were determined periodically throughout the 180 minutes of the study. Arterial hypoxemia occurred within 5 minutes despite intense hyperventilation. Colic and diarrhea occurred in all ponies within 30 minutes after endotoxin administration. Metabolic acidosis developed within 30 minutes and persisted throughout the study, indicating widespread reduced tissue perfusion.
Dietz HH, Nielsen K.Four horses with a history of chronic diarrhoea and weight loss were studied. Three of them revealed malabsorption, as indicated by decreased absorption of D(+)-xylose. Three patients had distinct hypoalbuminaemia, and 131I-albumin turnover rates of these three horses were increased, compared to two normal control horses. However, the increases were not very marked, probably because actual signs of enteric disease were few in the patients, all of which were studied during convalescence. It is suggested that the observed hypoalbuminaemia is due to a gastrointestinal protein loss during the chro...
Al-Khalidi NW, Weisbrode SE, Dubey JP.Nine ponies were fed 100,000 infective Toxoplasma gondii oocysts and were given corticosteroid injections before and after feeding the T gondii oocysts. Titers to the Sabin-Feldman dye tests (1:2 to 1:16,384) developed within postinoculation days (PID) 7 to 21 and antibodies persisted to PID 133. Toxoplasma organisms were isolated from the tissues of 4 ponies (heart of 4, brain of 2, spinal cord of 3, diaphragm of 1, skeletal muscle of 1, liver of 1, kidneys of 1) killed between PID 36 and 63, but not from 5 ponies killed between PID 117 and 150. Seemingly, ponies are one of the more resistant...
McDonald GK.A six year old Percheron mare was presented with a history of spontaneous unilateral epistaxis of 24 hours duration. The blood one stage prothrombin and partial thromboplastin times were markedly prolonged. A diagnosis of moldy sweetclover poisoning was made on the basis of the history and clinical and laboratory findings. A single whole blood transfusion and four daily intravenous injections of vitamin K(3) proved to be a successful treatment.
Kamada M, Ando Y, Fukunaga Y, Kumanomido T, Imagawa H, Wada R, Akiyama Y.A primary enzootic of equine Getah virus infection involving 722 of 1,903 racehorses occurred at a training center in Japan between September and November of 1978. Sixty-two viral agents were isolated from the plasma of 209 sick horses which exhibited pyrexia with rectal temperatures ranging from 38.5--40 degrees C, urticarial rash on various portions of the body, and edema of the hind legs. The viruses were antigenically related to the AMM 2021, Haruna, and Sagiyama strains of Getah virus. Infection and disease were produced experimentally in horses when inoculated by the intramuscular or int...
Sahu SP, Dardiri AH.Uterine, cervical, and clitoral specimens on swabs from pony mares infected with contagious equine equine metritis (CEM) bacteria were streaked on agar plates. Colonies of CEM bacteria were observed under CO2 incubation in 2 days on Eugon chocolate agar and Eugon blood agar plates. The diameter of the colonies varied from 0.2 mm to 1 mm in 2 days which increased to 0.3 mm to 2.0 mm on day 4. The colonies on Eugon chocolate agar plates on days 2 to 4 were shiny, brown, round, and convex, and easily glided when pushed with a loop. The diameter of the colonies on chocolate and blood agar plates m...
Amtmann E, Müller H, Sauer G.Bovine papilloma virus (BPV) appears to be the etiological agent of common equine connective tissue tumors. We investigated the physical state of the viral DNA within such tumors and found no indication for integration into the host genome. The BPV genomes were present as free circular episomes. Two equine sarcoids were shown to contain multiple copies of free circular BPV type 1 (BPV-1) DNA. When the tumors were digested with several single-cut restriction enzymes, there were only form III BPV-1 DNA sequences could be revealed. One of the sarcoids contained, apart from wild-type BPV-1 DNA, a ...
Kono Y, Sentsui H, Ito Y.A virus (Sakai) which had been recovered from an outbreak of disease in horses was found to be a small spherical enveloped RNA virus with a diameter of approximately 70 nm and a buoyant density of 1.22 g per ml. It grew well and produced a cytopathic effect in a variety of cell cultures; it was sensitive to organic solvents, heat and low pH. It agglutinated goose erythrocytes in a 0.35 M sodium chloride solution at an optimum pH of 6.2 and was antigenically identical or closely related to Getah virus, a member of the alphavirus subgroup of the Togaviridae.
Littlejohn A, Bowles F.Pressure curves obtained by cardiac catheterization of the pulmonary artery, right ventricle and right atrium of 9 horses and ponies with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were compared with those similarly recorded from 6 clinically normal control subjects. The mean pulmonary peak systolic, pulmonary minimum diastolic and ventricular peak systolic pressures of the COPD subjects were significantly higher (P less than 0,01) than the corresponding mean pressures of the clinically normal control subjects. The mean pressure calculated from pressure curves obtained from 8 Thoroughbreds i...
Sentsui H, Kono Y.During the autumn of 1978 a disease characterised by fever and occasionally by exanthema and/or oedema of the limbs was seen in approximately 13 per cent of horses in a training stable in the Kanto district of Japan. A virus was isolated by the intracerebral inoculation of one-day-old mice from blood and nasal swabs taken from naturally and experimentally infected horses. The virus was subsequently passaged in two monkey kidney cell lines in which it produced complete cytopathic changes. Infected horses developed neutralising, complement fixing and haemagglutinin inhibiting antibodies to the v...
van der Gaag I, Tibboel D.Intestinal atresia was found in 29 animals and stenosis in five. Atresia was found in the duodenum in one pup; in the jejunum in nine calves, two lambs and one piglet; in the ileum in one pup, one lamb and one piglet; and in the colon in one foal, seven calves, one lamb, one piglet and three kittens. Stenosis was found in the duodenum of a foal, in the jejunum in two calves and one pup, and in both the ileum and the colon of a kitten. One lamb showed ileal atresia as well as ileal stenosis. We classified the atresia as type 1, membrane atresia (four cases); type 2, cord atresia (six cases); an...
Drudge JH, Lyons ET, Tolliver SC.The basic-dose confirmation tests of tioxidazole for removal of susceptible populations of gastrointestinal parasites of the horse were made in 10 naturally infected horses, using the critical test method (experiment A). A single dose of toxidazole, given at the rate of 11 mg/kg of body weight, was administered to 5 horses by stomach tube and to 5 horses by mixing the drug with the daily grain ration. In the 5 horses given the drug by stomach tube, aggregate average removals were 90% or more for 5 horses infected with Stronglyus vulgaris, 5 infected with S edentatus, 5 infected with small stro...
Beacham BE, Cooper PH, Buchanan CS, Weary PE.We describe four patients with panniculitis attributable to a combination of cold exposure and equestrian activities. All were young, healthy women who rode horses for at least two consecutive hours per day throughout the winter. Initially, several small, erythematosus, pruritic papules appeared on the superior-lateral portions of one or both thighs. During one week, the lesions progressed to indurated, red-to-violaceous,tender plaques and nodules. Studies for cryofibrinogens and cryoglobulins were negative. The histologic picture was that of a panniculitis with prominent inflammation of veins...
Littlejohn A.Twenty cases of chronic cough originating in the lung and associated with loss of performance were clinically examined. The physical signs observed were compared with those observed in a control series of 38 clinically normal horses. Reduced work tolerance, coughing for more than 3 months and abnormal pulmonary sounds (râles) were primary signs of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Forced abdominal expiratory efforts and pumping of the anus were regarded as confirmatory signs. Neither nasal discharge nor increased marginal distance was found to be a reliable sign of COPD. The mean ...
Lepage OM, Laverty S, Drolet R, Lavoie JP.A case of infiltrative lipoma in the left flank of a yearling Quarter Horse is described. Rectal palpation, percutaneous ultrasonographic examination, the marbled appearance and poor delineation from surrounding tissues strongly suggested an infiltrative lipoma. This was confirmed by histological examination. Infiltrative lipomas should be included in the differential diagnosis of soft masses located in equine muscle.
Beard WL, Byrne BA, Henninger RW.Irreducible ileocecal intussusceptions pose a difficult surgical problem. Strangulating ileocecal intussusceptions involving the ileum and jejunum were identified in 2 horses undergoing exploratory laparotomy because of colic. Surgical correction in both horses was achieved by amputation of the ileocecal intussusception from within the cecal lumen, via typhlotomy. The inverted ileal stump was blindly stapled near the ileocecal orifice after pulling the intussusceptum into the cecum. A jejunocecostomy was performed to reestablish intestinal continuity.
Matthews AG.This paper overviews some recent developments in mammalian corneal immunobiology, and discusses how these may act as pointers towards understanding the immunology underlying some common corneal diseases in the horse, including infectious ulceration and presumptively immune-mediated non-ulcerative disease. Specifically, three aspects of corneal immunobiology are examined: the role of Toll-like receptors in surface immunity and in the etiogenesis of microbial ulceration, the relationship between conjunctiva associated lymphoid tissue (CALT) and immunoprotection of the corneal surface, and the me...
McGovern KF, Gough RL.An 18 hours old foal presented with a suspected meconium impaction. There was no response to treatment and a tentative diagnosis of atresia coli (AC) was made. Surgical intervention was declined and the foal was euthanized 12 hours after admission. Type 3 AC was confirmed on post-mortem examination, with the colon ending at the left ventral colon. A 1,080 large colon volvulus (LCV) at the sternal flexure was present. It is speculated that AC could predispose the foal to LCV. Histopathology was not performed but would be useful in further cases of AC.
Spoormakers TJ, Klein WR, van Weeren PR.At the Department of Equine Sciences at Utrecht University a study was performed on the treatment of sarcoids with the cytostatic drug cisplatin. Fourteen horses with 23 sarcoids were treated in the period 2000-2001. Complete regression was seen in 78% of the tumours. No systemic side-effects were encountered. Although treatment was easy to perform, the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle should be followed when using cytostatics.
Patterson-Kane JC, Tramontin RR, Giles RC, Harrison LR.A 14-year-old Thoroughbred gelding with a history of acute onset of hematuria was presented for necropsy. Transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder with intra-abdominal dissemination was diagnosed. Tumor masses were observed on the splenic capsule and surrounding the distal abdominal aorta. Tumor cells showed diffuse cytoplasmic reactivity for cytokeratin but were negative for epithelial membrane antigen, carcinoembryonic antigen, tumor-associated glycoprotein 72, and vimentin.