The study of diseases in horses encompasses a wide range of conditions affecting equine health, including infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, and genetic abnormalities. These diseases can impact various systems within the horse, such as respiratory, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal systems, and can lead to significant health challenges. Research in this area focuses on understanding the pathophysiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of equine diseases. Common diseases studied include equine influenza, equine herpesvirus, and laminitis. This page provides access to peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the etiology, clinical presentation, and management strategies of diseases in horses, contributing to the advancement of equine veterinary medicine.
Devriese LA, Ieven M, Goossens H, Vandamme P, Pot B, Hommez J, Haesebrouck F.Enterococcus faecium strains with vanA-mediated glycopeptide resistance were isolated by enrichment culture from the intestines and feces of several animal species, mainly horses and dogs (8% positive), chickens (7% positive), and pigs (6% positive). Other vanA-positive enterococcal strains were identified as E. durans in gallinaceous birds, E. faecalis in a horse, and E. gallinarum in a pheasant. Samples from pigeons, cage birds, and ruminants were negative. It was concluded that vancomycin resistance is widespread among isolates from farm and pet animals.
Gerard MP, Bowman KF, Blikslager AT, Tate LP, Bristol DG.To determine whether complete cecal bypass, by jejunocolostomy or ileocolostomy, is an effective treatment for horses with cecal impaction. Methods: Retrospective analysis of medical records. Methods: 9 horses with cecal impaction managed by jejunocolostomy (3) or ileocolostomy (6) performed with or without typhlotomy for evacuation of cecal contents. Methods: Information on age, breed, gender, duration of medical treatment, preoperative abnormalities, surgical procedure, and postoperative complications was retrieved from the medical records. Follow-up data were obtained via telephone intervie...
Haider W, Brehm W, Keller H.An apparently unilateral cryptorchid stallion was referred to the clinic with a history of colic. In the course of laparotomy an ileus caused by strangulation of the small intestine was found and the horse was euthanized because of poor prognosis. During autopsy strictures and ectasia of the jejunum were found as well as hermaphroditism along with male phenotype. The frequency of cryptorchidism in the case of intersexuality is discussed.
Beelitz P, Göbel E, Gothe R.In this epidemiological study of endoparasites 37 donkeys and 23 horses were included, which were examined coproscopically in regular intervals over a 15 month period. The animals derived from ten farms, in which regular prophylactic treatments with anthelmintics had been practiced at least for two years before this investigation. This study revealed the presence of at least twelve parasite species in donkeys, Eimeria leuckarti, Gasterophilus intestinalis, Fasciola hepatica, Anoplocephala perfoliata, Strongyloides westeri, Parascaris equorum, Dictyocaulus arnfieldi, Trichostrongylus axei and s...
McAbee GN, Ciminera PF.Intracranial hematoma in pediatric equestrians is rare, notwithstanding the lack of uniform standards and requirements for the use of protective headgear during equestrian events. We report two teenage helmeted equestrians who sustained severe head trauma with intracranial hematoma due to falls during equestrian events. Current recommendations for the use of equestrian headgear are reviewed.
Holland RE, Grimes SD, Walker RD, Wilson RA.Hemolytic E. coli strain 807-13, O149:NM:K88(STb+, LT+), was isolated from the feces of a neonatal diarrheic foal. E. coli 807-13 was examined for adhesion to brush border membranes (BBM) from foals, adult horses and pigs, and its pathogenicity was assessed in neonatal foals and pigs. E. coli 807-13 did not adhere to equine BBM but adhered to pig BBM. It did not cause diarrhea nor did it colonize the intestinal epithelium of 3 colostrum-deprived and 3 suckled foals challenged at 24 h of age. Acute ulcerative gastritis and acute suppurative gastritis were observed in 2 colostrum-deprived challe...
Sellon DC, Walker KM, Russell KE, Perry ST, Fuller FJ.Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) is a lentivirus that replicates predominantly in mature tissue macrophages. Viral expression is strongly influenced by the state of differentiation of the host cell. While blood monocytes can be infected, viral transcription is limited until the cell differentiates into a mature macrophage. Activation of mature macrophages infected with EIAV might also alter viral expression, presumably through binding of cellular transcription factors to viral nucleic acid sequences within the long terminal repeat (LTR). Using DNA amplification techniques, we compared LTR...
Netherwood T, Wood JL, Townsend HG, Mumford JA, Chanter N.A case control study of foal diarrhoea in the United Kingdom was carried out over a 3-year period. Clostridium perfringens was significantly associated with foal diarrhoea (Odds Ratio (OR) = 3.0), being isolated from 57% of 421 animals with diarrhoea but from only 27% of 223 healthy foals. Also, C. perfringens was significantly associated with fatal diarrhoea (OR = 4.5). About half of diarrhoea with a fatal outcome was attributable to this organism. The other pathogens significantly associated with diarrhoea were rotavirus (OR = 5.6), Cryptosporidium spp. (OR = 3.2) and the nematode Strongyloi...
Proudman CJ, Trees AJ.There is increasing interest in the application of serological methods to macro-parasite infections to indicate infection intensity, which in turn is related to pathogenicity. Colic is the single most important cause of mortality in horses and there is evidence that a proportion of colic cases are associated with infection with the intestinal cestode Anoplocephala perfoliata. In order to develop better tools to investigate this association, the correlation between antigen-specific equine IgG and IgG(T) and infection intensity of A. perfoliata was investigated. Affinity purification of a 12/13 ...
Foreyt WJ, Lagerquist JE.Peripheral blood neutrophils from horses, cattle, and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis) were evaluated for susceptibility to cytotoxin-dependent lysis of different biotypes and serotypes of Pasteurella haemolytica of domestic sheep, cattle, bighorn sheep, or mountain goat (Oreamnos americana) origin utilizing a cytotoxicity assay which measures the degree of bacteria cytotoxin-killing of neutrophils. All isolates of P. haemolytica (biotypes A and T) were noncytotoxic to horse neutrophils. Thirteen of 18 R haemolytica biotype A isolates were cytotoxic (> 50% neutrophi...
Gasser RB, Stevenson LA, Chilton NB, Nansen P, Bucknell DG, Beveridge I.Five species of equine strongyle belonging to the subfamily Strongylinae (Strongylus edentatus, S. equinus, S. vulgaris, Oesophagodontus robustus and Triodontophorus serratus) and 11 species belonging to the subfamily Cyathostominae (Poteriostomum imparidentatum, P. ratzii, Cylicocyclus insignis, Cc. leptostomus, Cc. nassatus, Cylicostephanus calicatus, Cs. longibursatus, Cs. goldi, Cyathostomum catinatum, Cy. labiatum and Cy. pateratum) were characterized using a polymerase chain reaction-linked restriction fragment length polymorphism technique (PCR-RFLP). Internal transcribed spacer ribosom...
Burrell MH, Wood JL, Whitwell KE, Chanter N, Mackintosh ME, Mumford JA.A longitudinal study of respiratory disease in racehorses was carried out to assess its relative associations with different infectious agents and to examine any role that the environmental conditions might play. The relationships between coughing, nasal discharge, pyrexia and lower respiratory tract disease were also examined to provide information for improving clinical diagnosis, particularly of disease of the lower respiratory tract. Lower airway disease was closely associated with infection with Streptococcus zooepidemicus. It was also found that equine herpesvirus seroconversions and S p...
Guglick MA, MacAllister CG, Ewing PJ, Confer AW.A 12-year-old Quarter Horse gelding was admitted to the veterinary medical teaching hospital with a 2-day history of signs of abdominal pain. Initial findings on physical examination included signs of lethargy, dehydration, diarrhea, and gastric reflux. Results of laboratory testing indicated that the horse had panleukopenia with neutrophilic toxic changes, was dehydrated, and was hypocalcemic. During the first 48 hours of hospitalization, 1 abdominal palpation per rectum and 3 analyses of peritoneal fluid were performed; abnormalities were not detected. A preliminary diagnosis of enterocoliti...
Friedhoff KT, Soulé C.A review of the distribution of Babesia equi and Babesia caballi, the
transmission of these protozoa by ticks and the immune response of infected
horses, in addition to a brief survey of diagnostic. tests and chemotherapy.
Paweska JT, Aitchison H, Chirnside ED, Barnard BJ.Lateral and sexual transmission of EAV among horses and lateral transmission between donkeys and horses were attempted by experimental infection with the South African asinine strain. Clinical, immunological and virological responses were evaluated. All intramuscularly inoculated horses developed very mild clinical signs, were viraemic, shed virus from nasopharynx, and seroconverted. Lateral infection was demonstrated in one in-contact mare. Reinfection of two stallions by intranasal instillation was shown by virus recovery from buffy-coat cultures. After nasal instillation of virus, one stall...
Yeruham I, Elad D, Egozi O.A retrospective study of an outbreak of dermatophilosis in a herd of 18 adult horses and 13 foals, in Israel, is presented. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time such an outbreak has been reported from a country in the Mediterranean climatic zone. This outbreak might be associated with exposure of the horses to water and humidity as a result of excessive rainfall in November 1994, as well as intensive washing of the horses and a long period spent by the animals in a marshy manege.
Hines MT, Schott HC, Bayly WM, Leroux AJ.Exercise has been recognized as a stress, which can significantly alter the host's immune response and, therefore, its susceptibility to disease. Whereas research in this area has previously focused primarily on human subjects and laboratory animals, it has more recently extended to domestic animals, especially the equine athlete. Despite several studies, defining the relationship among exercise, the immune response, and disease has proven difficult due to a number of factors, including the complexity of the immune system and the variable nature of exercise itself. It now appears that exercise...
Boomker J, Coetzer JA, Scott DB.Black grain mycetoma occurred in two horses, one a cross-bred pony and the other a Thoroughbred racehorse. Lesions were limited to wart-like growths in one case and a deep-seated girth gall in the other. In both cases the granules in the affected tissues were similar in pigmentation and structure to those produced by Curvularia geniculata in dogs. Since all the specimens were received in formalin, the causative fungus could not be isolated. These are the first cases of maduromycosis in animals to be recorded in South Africa.
Smith KC.Respiratory disease is an important cause of wastage in the Thoroughbred industry and is a cause of welfare problems in all types of horse. This review concerns developments in our understanding of equine respiratory disease since 1998 and illustrates how strategic funding from the Horserace Betting Levy Board has contributed to this understanding.
Greet TR.Thirty eight horses with epiglottal entrapment were examined. In 29 the dorsally displaced mucosa was split axially with a curved hook knife, per nasum. The condition was also treated by subepiglottal mucosal resection (4 horses) and solely by the administration of an anti-inflammatory throat spray (4 horses). All surgical cases were treated with an anti-inflammatory throat spray and parenteral phenylbutazone. Those horses treated via a laryngotomy incision were box rested until the laryngotomy incision healed. The other horses were restricted to walking and trotting exercise for 10 days befor...
Willis AT, Barnum S, Pusterla N.This study aimed to validate a point-of-care polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for detection of subsp. in rostral nasal swabs from horses with suspected acute strangles and to compare the results against the molecular gold standard of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Two hundred thirty-two individual swabs of rostral nasal passages were characterized by qPCR as positive, subsp. positive, or and negative. The specificity and sensitivity of the point-of-care PCR assay were 89% and 84%, respectively. The limits of detection of the qPCR assay and the point-of-care PCR anal...
Arroyo LG, Hodgins DC, Guest B, Costa M, Ma Z, Monteiro MA.Clostridioides difficile (formerly Clostridium difficile) is associated with colitis in foals and mature horses. C. difficile exposes specific phosphorylated polysaccharides (PSs), named PS-I, PS-II and PS-III. These cell-surface PSs are potential vaccine targets, especially the hexasaccharide phosphate PS-II, that has been found in all C. difficile ribotypes examined. Since we previously identified anti-PS-II circulating antibodies in horses, we postulated that vaccinating foals with PS-II may prevent colonization by C. difficile. In this study, we aim to evaluate the IgM antibody response...
Pope DC, Heslop CH.An outbreak of myoglobinuria under unusual circumstances in a group of four horses, together with the events leading up to the diagnosis, is described, and a brief mention of two previously recorded similar cases is made.