Veterinary science and horses encompass the study and application of medical, surgical, and therapeutic practices to maintain and improve the health and welfare of equines. This field addresses a wide range of topics, including disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as nutrition, reproduction, and behavior. Research in veterinary science for horses often involves understanding the pathophysiology of equine-specific diseases, developing advanced diagnostic techniques, and improving treatment protocols. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various aspects of veterinary science related to horses, providing insights into the latest advancements and methodologies in equine healthcare.
Kopecka A, Novotna T, Svobodova Z, Drabkova Z.This study describes a case of poisoning by pyrrolizidine alkaloids in a horse. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first confirmed case of Senecio ovatus poisoning. A six-year-old 450-kg Irish cob mare was presented to the Equine Clinic of the University of Veterinary Sciences Brno (Czechia) with symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy, which progressively worsened with time despite intensive therapy and led to euthanasia. A complex diagnostic and therapeutic approach including the post-mortem patoanatomical and histopathological examination is described here. Regar...
Wu J, Na H, Bai F, Li S, Gao H, Sha R.Horse bone is rich in collagen, with a composition similar to that of human collagen. Collagen peptides supply nutrients needed for human growth that act as antioxidants, lower blood pressure. This study explored the extraction of collagen and the preparation of collagen short peptides from Mongolian horse bones. Bones were collected from horses of varying ages, and the collagen content along with calcium salt distribution were observed through staining and imaging analyses. Next, the bones were processed into a powder and then subjected to ultra-high-pressure processing for degreasing. The de...
Hepworth-Warren KL, Goldsmith D, Tsoi M, Gerras A, Noll C, Pinn-Woodcock T, Moreira A, Penttila K, Ballou ME, Dembek KA, Valberg SJ.To describe the clinical findings, outcomes, and muscle histopathology in warmblood horses that developed severe rhabdomyolysis in the perianesthetic period despite remaining stable while under general anesthesia. Methods: 7 warmblood horses, 6 geldings and 1 mare, with a median age of 9 years (range, 4 to 18 years) and median weight of 615 kg (range, 550 to 703 kg). Records from the Valberg Neuromuscular Diagnostic Laboratory and Michigan State University were reviewed (2016 to 2023) to identify warmbloods with postanesthetic myopathy (PAM). Methods: Warmblood horses with no history of myopat...
Brunner S, Fürst AE, Jackson MA.Dermal melanoma is a common neoplastic disease in horses, which occurs particularly in gray horses. There are various local and systemic therapeutic approaches to treat this skin tumor. Vaccination with human tyrosinase, ONCEPT ® vaccine, is a newer type of systemic melanoma therapy. In this study, the effectiveness of this ONCEPT ® vaccine was retrospectively examined in eight treated horses. In half of the horses (4) a positive change in tumor growth in the sense of retardation, stagnation and, in one of these horses, even reduction in the size of the melanomas was observed. Of the rem...
Bianchera A, Borghetti P, Ravanetti F, Bertocchi L, De Angelis E, Bettini R.Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a key component of synovial fluid as it plays a crucial role in joint physiology. Its biological activity is influenced by molecular weight, local concentration, and persistence in joints. High-molecular-weight HA has a consolidated history of clinical use, whereas little is known about the metabolic effect of low-molecular-weight hyaluronate on cartilage differentiation. This study explores the potential of HA-based nanoparticles (NPs) on chondrocytes differentiation in vitro. Starting from 25 kDa and 250 kDa sodium hyaluronate solutions, two types of NPs were prepared...
Peere S, Van den Branden E, Broothaers K, Polfliet E, Smits K, Govaere J.Transfer of in vitro-produced (IVP) equine embryos is associated with a higher incidence of monozygotic multiple pregnancies, but this remains a rarity. The outcome of monozygotic twin gestation is poor, and good management techniques are lacking. In addition, hydrops conditions are exceptional in horses, with hydroallantois occurring more frequently than hydramnion. Most hydrops conditions will lead to compromise or death of the foal and mare. A 6-year-old multiparous standardbred recipient mare, 332 days pregnant, diagnosed with a monozygotic twin and hydrops with a dead co-twin, gave birth ...
Fernandes T, Robin M, Freeman KP.Biological variation in laboratory results refers to physiological fluctuations that occur around a homeostatic setpoint (HSP) for various laboratory measurands. Assessment of biological variation includes determining individual variation (CV), group variation (CV), and analytical variation (CV). Reference change value (RCV) is an objective tool for an evidence-based approach to interpret data by assessing the significance of consecutive results in an individual for the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of disease. The individualised reference intervals (iRI) are derived from the determinat...
Holst BS, Engelmann A, Gröndahl G, Gunnarsson L, Haug Haaland A, Hielm-Björkman A, Moe L, Rhodin M, Rönnberg H, Stråhle M, Toljander Y....The societal value of cats, dogs and horses is high, and the companion and sport animal health care sector is growing. Clinical research concerning cats, dogs and horses is crucial for the development of evidence-based medical care that benefits animals and their owners, and has implications for human and environmental health from a One Health perspective. Basic information on companion animal and equine research enables more directed measures to improve conditions for research within the area. The aim of the present study was to describe Nordic companion animal and equine clinical research fr...
Sharma NK, Singh P, Saha B, Bhardwaj A, Iquebal MA, Pal Y, Nayan V, Jaiswal S, Giri SK, Legha RA, Bhattacharya TK, Kumar D, Rai A.Copy number variations (CNVs) have become widely acknowledged as a significant source of genomic variability and phenotypic variance. To understand the genetic variants in horses, CNVs from six Indian horse breeds, namely, Manipuri, Zanskari, Bhutia, Spiti, Kathiawari and Marwari were discovered using Axiom™ Equine Genotyping Array. These breeds differed in agro-climatic adaptation with distinct phenotypic characters. A total of 2668 autosomal CNVs and 381 CNV regions (CNVRs) were identified with PennCNV tool. DeepCNV was employed to re-validate to get 883 autosomal CNVs, of which 9.06% were...
Albert E, Biksi I, Laczkó L, Miló L, Cseri K, Bőkényné Tóth R, Papp D, Halmay D, Bódai E, Bakos Z.Here we report the isolation of Streptococcus hillyeri from a thoracic sample from a horse. A 17-y-old Hungarian Sport Horse mare was referred to the equine clinic of the University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Hungary, with suspected pleuritis. Upon arrival, the horse was febrile and had tachycardia, severe inspiratory dyspnea, and tachypnea. Thoracic ultrasonography revealed severe bilateral pleural effusion, and a large area of lung consolidation. After sampling of both hemithoraces, 66 L of turbid exudate were drained. Based on these findings, a tentative diagnosis of septic pleuritis ...
Cardeti G, Manna G, Cersini A, Nardini R, Rosati S, Reina R, Cittadini M, Sittinieri S, Altigeri A, Marcario GA, Scicluna MT.The mechanisms of the innate immunity control of equine infectious anemia virus in horses are not yet widely described. Equine monocytes isolated from the peripheral blood of three Equine infectious anemia (EIA) seronegative horses were differentiated in vitro into macrophages that gave rise to mixed cell populations morphologically referable to M1 and M2 phenotypes. The addition of two equine recombinant cytokines and two EIA virus reference strains, Miami and Wyoming, induced a more specific cell differentiation, and as for other species, IFNγ and IL4 stimulation polarized horse macrophages...
Shinn LT, Wagner CB, Desai R, Marini BL.Horse antithymocyte globulin carries a black box warning for life-threatening anaphylactic reactions, and prescribing information recommends test doses to identify patients at highest risk of this adverse effect. The predictive value of such test doses is not well validated, and practicality of use is unclear. Methods: This was a planned secondary analysis of a multicenter, retrospective cohort study in adults with severe aplastic anemia being managed with horse antithymocyte globulin as part of their treatment regimen. Qualitative and quantitative descriptions of test doses and infusion react...
Ha Y, Yi K, Park C, Kim G, Choi D, Lee J, Kim N.This study aimed to measure the whole blood viscosity (WBV) in racehorses using a new viscometer and establish reference values, as well as to investigate the correlation between the WBV and the haematological parameters and serum chemistry. WBV measurements were conducted on 51 Thoroughbred horses using a novel U-shaped scanning capillary-tube viscometer. The reference values for the WBV were determined at various shear rates ranging from 1 s to 1 000 s. Correlation analyses were performed to examine the correlation between the WBV and the haematological and serum chemistry parameters. The fi...
Perera TRW, de Ruijter-Villani M, Gibb Z, Nixon B, Sheridan A, Stout TAE, Swegen A, Skerrett-Byrne DA.Embryo-maternal signaling during the establishment of pregnancy in horses remains one of the biggest mysteries in large animal physiology. Early pregnancy loss represents a major source of economic loss to the breeding industry. This study aimed to investigate the systemic changes associated with early pregnancy by mapping the proteome of blood plasma at 14 days in pregnant and non-pregnant mares. Methods: Plasma proteomes were analysed in commercially bred pregnant (n = 17) and non-pregnant (n = 17) Thoroughbred mares at 14 days after ovulation, using high-resolution mass spectrometry. D...
Kozak S, Merda D, Chesnais V, Breuil MF, Harrison M, Zdovc I, Golob M, Petry S, Duquesne F.Taylorella equigenitalis is the causative agent of contagious equine metritis, an internationally regulated sexually-transmitted infection in horses, which is of great concern as it usually results in temporary infertility. Taylorella asinigenitalis, the second member of the genus, is mainly found in donkeys and is considered non-pathogenic, although a first natural outbreak was reported in 2019 in the United Arab Emirates. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is currently used to study the epidemiology of Taylorella spp. but, while highly transposable and reproducible, it only focuses on < 0.5...
Haenni M, Murri S, Drapeau A, Rafidinarivo I, Gilles S, Keck N, Léon A, Sulter A, Tricaud MC, François P, Madec JY.Staphylococcus aureus is an important zoonotic pathogen that has often been seen in animals through the prism of the MRSA clonal complex (CC) 398 in pigs and in-contact humans. The goal of this study was first to assess the prevalence of MRSA, and second to look for MSSA CC398 in cats, dogs and horses in France. Methods: Clinical S. aureus isolates (n = 479) were collected from 186 cats, 143 dogs and 150 horses during 2022-2023 all over the French territory. Antibiograms were performed on all isolates. MRSA and MSSA CC398 isolates were subject to WGS. Core genome (cg) MLST-based and SNP-ba...
Orozco Lopez D, Garcia-Lopez JM, Carpenter R, Bras JJ, Richardson DW, Ortved KF.To describe the outcome of metacarpophalangeal (MCPJ) and proximal interphalangeal joint (PIPJ) arthrodesis using a locking compression-distal femur plate (LCP-DFP) in Thoroughbred racehorses with traumatic disruption of the suspensory apparatus (TDSA) at risk of PIPJ subluxation. Methods: Multicenter retrospective study. Methods: Twenty-six Thoroughbred racehorses. Methods: Records of Thoroughbred racehorses with TDSA that had undergone MCPJ and PIPJ arthrodesis using an LCP-DFP at three referral hospitals between 2020 and 2024 were reviewed for inclusion. The preoperative data collected incl...
McGowan C.Traumatic muscle injuries are likely to be frequent in athletic horses yet are often overlooked. These injuries usually involve internal (intrinsic) trauma, and particularly occur in athletic horses exercising at higher intensities, at unaccustomed workloads, or performing work requiring sudden acceleration, deceleration, and/or direction changes. These injuries can present with signs ranging from acute pain and lameness in a localized region to unexplained elevations of muscle enzymes on routine blood tests with or without poor performance. They include exercise-induced muscle damage such as ...
Boger BL, Kinsley MA, Yob CJ, Knott LE, Manfredi JM.To determine if equine platelet-rich plasma (PRP) contains Dickkopf-1 (Dkk-1) and, if so, to quantify the amount of Dkk-1 in bovine thrombin (BT)-activated PRP and a control platelet lysate created using a freeze-thaw (FT) method. Unassigned: 10 adult horses were used in this experimental study. Blood was collected and processed in November 2019 and stored at -80 °C until the ELISAs were performed in October of 2023. Blood was collected from each horse, and PRP was created using a commercially available kit. Known concentrations of platelets were activated using BT or by an FT cycle to create...
Heath HD, Peng S, Szmatola T, Ryan S, Bellone RR, Kalbfleisch T, Petersen JL, Finno CJ.Allele-specific expression (ASE) analysis provides a nuanced view of cis-regulatory mechanisms affecting gene expression. Results: An equine ASE analysis was performed, using integrated Iso-seq and short-read RNA sequencing data from four healthy Thoroughbreds (2 mares and 2 stallions) across 9 tissues from the Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes (FAANG) project. Allele expression was quantified by haplotypes from long-read data, with 42,900 allele expression events compared. Within these events, 635 (1.48%) demonstrated ASE, with liver tissue containing the highest proportion. Genetic var...
Chatha MA, Ahmad N, Abbas MA, Saadullah M, Khan JA.This study was designed to explore the impact of intrinsic (breed of foal, age of dam, and age of foal at weaning) and extrinsic (season of birth and housing type) factors on the growth and survival of foals in the subtropical conditions of Pakistan. For the growth study, retrospective data analysis of foals (n = 150) born from purebred brood mares of Thoroughbred, Arabs, and Percheron breeds (n1, n2, and n3 = 50 each) was made. Six hundred and twenty-four (n = 624) foals born between 2020 to 2022 were observed for the study of foal survival rate. The survival of these foals till the age of on...
Klitzing L, Kirsch K, Schindler M, Merle R, Hoffmann G, Thöne-Reineke C, Wiegard M.The novel object test is one of the three most common fear tests in veterinary science and employed in several different species. Although having been applied in several different studies in horses, it is surprising that there is no standardized test procedure available for these kinds of tests. Unassigned: This study investigated the performance of the novel object test on 42 young Thoroughbred horses to determine the effect of sex (mare or stallion), test sites (round pen or paddock) and whether the horses had previously participated in an auction or not on the behavior during the novel obje...
Durward-Akhurst SA, Valberg SJ.Several inflammatory myopathies have an infectious or immune-mediated basis in the horse. Myosin heavy chain myopathy is caused by a codominant missense variant in MYH1 and has 3 clinical presentations: immune-mediated myositis, calciphylaxis, and nonexertional rhabdomyolysis in Quarter Horse-related breeds. An infarctive form of purpura hemorrhagica affects numerous breeds, presenting with focal firm, painful muscle swelling, and subsequent infarction of multiple tissues. While Streptococcus equi equi is often the inciting cause, anaplasmosis, sarcocystis, piroplasmosis, viruses, and vaccines...
Valberg SJ, Williams ZJ.Myofibrillar myopathy (MFM) is characterized by segmental disarray of myofibrils and ectopic accumulation of a protein called desmin. Previously thought to be a glycogen storage disease, MFM is now recognized as a stand-alone myopathy. Endurance Arabians with MFM usually present with exertional rhabdomyolysis (MFM-ER) at the end of races, elevated serum muscle enzymes, and myoglobinuria. Warmblood horses with MFM (MFM-WB) usually present with pain-associated behaviors such as exercise intolerance, reluctance to engage hind quarter muscles, shifting lameness and normal serum muscle enzymes. Bot...
Ishihara T, Nieves E, Reed R, Hofmeister E.Dobutamine is used to treat hypotension in isoflurane-anaesthetised horses but may produce arrhythmias. Halothane is a volatile anaesthetic that was, historically, widely used in horses, but in one study, 56 of 200 halothane-anaesthetised horses (28%) developed arrhythmias after dobutamine administration. Although isoflurane has largely replaced halothane, it is unknown how isoflurane and dobutamine interact in the development of arrhythmias. Methods: The medical records of horses undergoing general anaesthesia at the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital in 2015 were reviewed ret...
Barshick MR, Ely KM, Mogge KC, Chance LM, Johnson SE.Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) is a sulfur-containing molecule with reported anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. Exercise causes the formation of free radicals and stimulates inflammatory gene expression in leukocytes and skeletal muscle. The hypothesis that dietary supplementation with MSM alters the exercise-mediated inflammatory and oxidant response was assessed in unfit adult thoroughbred geldings. Ten geldings (6.7 ± 1.6 yr) were assigned to a diet supplemented without (CON, = 5) or with 21 g of MSM ( = 5) for 30 days. Following the supplementation period, horses performed a stan...
Chodzinski A, Wissing S, Tipold A, Geburek F.The skills necessary to perform diagnostic perineural anesthesia in equids belongs to one of the Day One Competences of a veterinarian, so every veterinary graduate should be able to perform them correctly. For logistical, hygienic and ethical reasons, practical exercises on cadaver limbs are not accessible to all students. Two equine distal limb simulators were developed and evaluated as an additional instructional tool to train the required skills. Both simulators were designed and built with an integrated success control, with Simulator I (S1) designed to be a simplified anatomical model an...
Rossi HS, Mykkänen AK, Junnila JJT, Hyytiäinen HK.Pulse oximetry has not been thoroughly evaluated for assessment of oxygenation in conscious foals. Compared with invasive arterial blood sampling, it is a painless and non-invasive method for real-time monitoring of blood oxygen saturation. The aim of this prospective clinical study was to evaluate the usability, validity, and reliability of pulse oximetry at two measuring sites (lip and caudal abdominal skin fold) for blood oxygen saturation measurement in conscious foals with and without respiratory compromise. Thirty-two foals under one month of age were used. Nineteen foals had normal resp...
Shi Y, Maga EA, Mienaltowski MJ.Diarrhea is a common disease that could threaten the welfare of newborn foals. While there are several forms of foal diarrhea, the etiologies can be considered known pathogenic or non-pathogenic in nature. Moreover, there are likely differences in the composition of microbial populations in the gastrointestinal tracts of foals depending upon the etiology of diarrhea. Our study aims to examine the microbial population in the feces of foals with both pathogenic and non-pathogenic diarrheas to discern differences in their microbial compositions. Results: Foal diarrhea samples tested positive or n...
The AnalystJanuary 23, 2025
doi: 10.1039/d4an01501k
Göktaş EF, Kabil E, Söylemez Yeşilçimen E, Dirikolu L.Various technical methodologies are required to accurately detect substances of different chemical and pharmacological properties in biological samples, which are increasing in number and variety daily. Therefore, laboratories where many samples and different factors are analyzed simultaneously need methods with easy sample preparation, short analysis times and low analysis costs. In this study, the objective was to scan substances susceptible to chemical degradation, amenable to analysis without hydrolysis, and exhibiting short-term stability by employing a straightforward, expeditious, and c...
