Equine inflammatory response to abdominal surgery in the absence of gastrointestinal disease.

Objective: To investigate the, equine inflammatory response to ventral midline celiotomy in the absence of gastrointestinal disease in horses of varying body condition scores primarily using serial measurements of serum amyloid A (SAA).

Design: Experimental clinical study.

Setting: University teaching hospital.

Double outlet right ventricle with subpulmonary ventricular septal defect (Taussig-Bing anomaly) and other complex congenital cardiac malformations in an American Quarter Horse foal.

A 4-week-old American Quarter Horse colt presented with a recent history of diarrhea and decreased activity level. On initial physical examination, the animal was bright and alert and major findings were limited to a loud systolic heart murmur radiating widely over both sides of the thorax. While in the hospital, the clinical condition of the foal warranted further imaging to determine the cause and extent of cardiac disease.

The effect of hypothermia on influx of leukocytes in the digital lamellae of horses with oligofructose-induced laminitis.

Sepsis-related laminitis (SRL) is a common complication in the septic/endotoxemic critically-ill equine patient, in which lamellar injury and failure commonly lead to crippling distal displacement of the distal phalanx. Similar to organ injury in human sepsis, lamellar injury in SRL has been associated with inflammatory events, including the influx of leukocytes into the lamellar tissue and markedly increased expression of a wide array of inflammatory mediators at the onset of Obel grade 1 (OG1) laminitis. The only treatment reported both clinically and experimentally to protect the lamellae in SRL, local hypothermia ("cryotherapy"), has been demonstrated to effectively inhibit lamellar expression of multiple inflammatory mediators when initiated at the time of administration of a carbohydrate overload in experimental models of SRL.