Owner assessment in judging the efficacy of airway disease treatment.

This research paper investigated whether owners of horses with chronic airway disease are better equipped to judge the effectiveness of their horse’s medication than a veterinarian examining the horse infrequently, using tests like clinical examination, cytology, and lung function tests. The study found out that the owner’s assessment is more reliable than the traditional methods of determining the efficacy of a drug for airway disease in horses.

Research Objective and Methodology

The research aimed to determine whether the owner’s perception of their horse’s health might be a better determinant of medication efficacy for chronic airway obstruction in horses, compared to a veterinarian’s clinical examination. The methods used in the research were:

• A double-blinded randomised controlled trial involving the owners of horses suffering from chronic respiratory disease and a veterinarian.
• The horses were treated randomly either with a drug named dexamethasone or a placebo for three weeks.
• Both before and after treatment, the owners assessed their horses’ health status on a visual analogue scale (VAS) considering aspects such as performance, breathing effort, coughing and nasal discharge.
• A veterinarian recorded additional clinical findings such as vital parameters (e.g. heart rate), respiratory distress, auscultation results, cough and nasal discharge, airway mucus score, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) cytology and arterial blood gases including respiratory rate (RR) and arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2).

Research Findings and Conclusion

The results of the study were:

• The owners reported a significant improvement in their horses’ VAS scores only in the group of horses treated with dexamethasone, and not in those receiving the placebo.
• Contrarily, the veterinarian participating in the study could not differentiate between the horses receiving dexamethasone or placebo by using traditional clinical observations, BALF cytology or endoscopic mucus score.
• There was a noteworthy improvement in the respiratory rate and arterial oxygen pressure in horses treated with dexamethasone, compared to the placebo group.

Based on the findings, the authors concluded that the owners, who are in constant contact with their horses and observe their condition daily might be better equipped to judge the efficacy of a chronic airway disease treatment. In addition, the authors suggested that the use of quantifiable indicators reflecting lung function, such as respiratory rate and arterial oxygen pressure, might provide a more reliable assessment of a drug’s efficacy than traditional, invasive clinical examinations made during brief veterinary visits.