Comments on proliferative pododermatitis in horses.

This letter to the editor discusses a case study of a Belgian gelding presenting with coronary band dystrophy and proliferative pododermatitis and questions whether the conditions were independent or connected. The authors also suggest that looking for bovine papillomavirus DNA could provide additional insight into the pathology of the horse’s condition.

Overview of the Study

• The authors review a recent Pathology in Practice article that examines a 13.5-year-old Belgian gelding suffering from coronary band dystrophy and proliferative pododermatitis.
• A point of discussion in the article is whether the horse’s pododermatitis was a result of the coronary band dystrophy or if the horse had concurrent canker, another disease condition in horses often associated with spirochetes.
• The authors reference two additional sources that describe cases of horses with cankers that had spirochetes present. However, in contrast, no spirochetes were identified in the Belgian gelding’s biopsy samples using silver histochemical staining.

Bovine Papillomavirus and Proliferative Pododermatitis

• The authors mention a study by Brandt et al, where an interesting association was found between canker in horses and bovine papillomaviruses type 1 and 2.
• Brandt et al consistently found bovine papillomavirus types 1 and 2 in the samples taken from horses with canker, versus samples from horses without signs of canker which all tested negative for the virus.
• Using conventional PCR assay methods, bovine papillomavirus types 1 and 2 DNA were found in all 24 hoof cankers examined, but were not present in samples taken from 13 horses that did not possess signs of canker.
• The identification of bovine papillomavirus in all canker afflicted horses could suggest that there is an association between the virus and the occurrence of canker in horses.

Further Explorations for the Original Case Study

• The authors believe that examining the presence or absence of bovine papillomavirus DNA in the tissues of the gelding in the original article could have yielded valuable information.
• This additional step might have helped to clarify the questions raised about the possibility of concurrent canker in that horse.
• By failing to investigate the possible presence of the virus, potential understandings of the pathology of this specific case and the relationship between bovine papillomavirus and hoof conditions in horses could arguably have been missed.