Evaluation of digital cryotherapy using a commercially available sleeve style ice boot in healthy horses and horses receiving i.v. endotoxin.

The research paper explores the effectiveness of a sleeve style ice boot, a type of digital cryotherapy, in decreasing skin and lamellar temperatures in healthy horses and those given a dose of endotoxin. The study finds that this type of cryotherapy significantly lowers these temperatures, and these temperature reductions are even more significant in horses under an endotoxaemic condition.

Objective, Design, and Methodology

• The study aims to evaluate the efficiency of the sleeve style ice boot, a type of digital cryotherapy, on cooling skin and lamellar temperatures in both healthy horses and horses exposed to endotoxin.
• The study was prospectively designed as a crossover study involving eight healthy horses. Thermocouples were inserted into the dorsal lamellae and under skin on the metacarpi of both front feet. One forelimb of each horse was treated with cryotherapy using the sleeve style ice boot, while the other forelimble served as a control and received no treatment.
• Temperature data was logged every 5 minutes during each cryotherapy session. The study was executed in two phases—day 1 involved healthy horses while day 2 involved the same horses but they were administered endotoxin intravenously.

Results and Statistics

• The study found that use of the ice boot significantly lowered mean skin and lamellar temperatures in both healthy and endotoxaemic horses, compared to the untreated limbs.
• The reductions in lamellar and skin temperatures were even greater in endotoxaemic horses than healthy horses—a significant statistical outcome noted in the study with P = 0.01.

Conclusions and Implications

• Despite one potential limitation of the study where the order of treatment was not randomized, the study concluded that the sleeve style ice boot caused significant decreases in lamellar temperatures compared to untreated control limbs in all horses.
• The study also showed endotoxic horses undergoing cryotherapy with the boot had significantly colder lamellae and skin than healthy horses, indicating a potentially greater therapeutic effect of cryotherapy in conditions of disease.
• This study constitutes the first evidence that a sleeve style ice boot— in which ice does not cover the hoof—can effectively lower lamellar temperatures by cooling the blood as it travels to the foot.
• These findings have clinical implications in terms of the potential use of the sleeve style ice boot in treating conditions such as laminitis in horses, especially when associated with sepsis.