Endocarditis in six horses.

The research article presents a study on six horses, mostly males, ranging from three months to fourteen years old, who had endocarditis; a condition affecting the heart valves. Postmortem examination revealed heart valve disease varying from single to multiple valve involvement, with bacteria and fungi detected in some of the afflicted horses.

Study Objective and Subjects

• The aim of this study was to investigate instances of endocarditis in horses.
• The subjects of this study were six horses ranging in ages from three months to fourteen years. Five of these horses were males.

Diagnosis and Findings

• Two horses had a clinical diagnosis of valvular endocarditis. However, the blood cultures for these two came back negative, indicating no presence of microorganisms in the bloodstream.
• Five out of six horses had either single or complex valve involvement, suggesting a prevalence of valvular endocarditis in horses.
• In one horse, the presence of non-infectious thrombi was noted, specifically associated only with the chordae tendineae, the string-like structures in the heart that connect the papillary muscles to the tricuspid valve and the mitral valve in the heart.

Valve Afflictions and Infarcts

• Regarding the type of valves affected, in four horses the mitral valve was affected and in two others, the aortic semilunar valves were impacted.
• The presence of infarcts, which are areas of dead tissue due to a lack of blood supply, was observed in the kidneys and the myocardium (heart muscle) of four horses.

Microbiological Findings

• Postmortem microbiological tests were conducted on the horses. Bacteria were isolated from the heart valve vegetations of two of the horses.
• In a third case, Candida parapsilosis, a type of yeast, was isolated and identified. The implication here is that fungi, as well as bacteria, could play a role in equine endocarditis.