Toxic hepatopathy in neonatal foals.

The research article investigates the death of six newborn foals who showed symptoms of liver disease, and its potential linkage to a nutritional supplement given shortly after their birth.

Background and Overview

• The article reports the cases of six newborn foals from three different breeds born to healthy mares, which seemed normal at birth and then died between two to five days old.
• These foals exhibited symptoms such as icterus (jaundice), ataxia (loss of body control), head pressing, and terminal hepatic coma (coma due to severe liver failure).
• A significant finding in these cases was that the foals’ livers were less than half the normal weight.

Research Findings

• The researchers conducted post-mortem examinations and histological analyses on the foals. They discovered abnormalities in the livers, most of which were dark red-brown, slightly rubbery, and displayed signs of severe bile ductule proliferation, mild portal tract fibrosis, and massive hepatocellular necrosis and lobular collapse.
• Investigations also revealed that small proportions of the liver, usually located on the outer parts of the lobes, were light brown and slightly raised. Delving into the histology of these regions, they detected mild to severe bile stasis (stagnation or delay of normal bile flow) in canaliculi (microscopic channels in the liver).
• In the area between severely and mildly affected liver sections, there was mild bile ductule proliferation and periportal fatty change and necrosis.

Cause linking Nutrition Paste

• The researchers identified a possible cause of death: all of these foals had been given an orally administered proprietary nutritional paste within two hours after their birth. The paste included a viable strain of Aspergillus species, a type of fungus, and an iron compound among its ingredients.
• To confirm whether the nutritional paste was causing the liver disease, similar lesions as found in those six foals were artificially induced in an experimental foal after feeding it the same paste.
• The scientists also reported the ubiquitous presence of Alzheimer’s type II cells, associated with hepatoencephalopathy, in the brains of all deceased foals, which suggests a neurological component to the disease.

Conclusion

• The article suggests a need for further research on the proprietary nutritional paste, the ingredients of which might be a direct contributing factor to the lethal liver disease observed in these six neonatal foals.