An epiglottic entrapment is an upper airway abnormality that can cause poor performance in athletic horses. A team of researchers from the University of Montreal recently developed a safer instrument for surgically correcting an entrapped epiglottis.

When a horse swallows food or water, the epiglottis (a movable, leaf-shaped piece of cartilage located at the base of the tongue and above the soft palate) covers the opening of the larynx to ensure that food and water do not enter the trachea, but instead pass into the esophagus. When a fold of tissue, called the aryepiglottic fold, folds into the epiglottis, the epiglottis becomes "entrapped." Clinical signs of epiglottic entrapment include noise on inspiration and/or expiration while exercising, poor performance, and, less commonly, headshaking.

"Two techniques are currently used (to correct an entrapped epiglottis): the transnasal axial division (a slice in the center of the tissue to relieve the entrapment) under general anesthesia using a hook bistoury–a long and narrow surgical knife–or releasing the entrapment with a laser (for which general anesthesia is not required)," said Mathieu Lacourt, DVM, of the University of Montreal, who along with colleague Marcel Marcoux, DVM, MS, worked to develop an improved bistoury.