Each year veterinarians worldwide wrestle with laminitis, a critical, debilitating horse disease that often causes chronic lameness or death in the animal. Despite the high number of laminitis patients veterinarians examine and treat, prevention and effective treatment options are still unavailable. At best, current understanding allows treatment of laminitis only when it is caught in its earliest stages.

Two equine researchers at the Louisian State University (LSU) School of Veterinary Medicine recently received a $216,000 USDA National Research Initiative, Mechanisms of Disease Grant, to further study the cause of laminitis. Dr. Rustin Moore, director of the Equine Health Studies Program and associate professor of equine surgery, and Dr. Susan Eades, associate professor of equine medicine, received the grant for their proposal, “Pathophysiologic and therapeutic implications for endothelin in equine laminitis.”

Through their two-year study they will attempt to determine if the initial factor leading to laminitis is caused by an imbalance in blood flow to the laminae of the feet, hopefully offering future options for fighting the disease.

“With laminitis, there is currently no reliable prevention and no universally effective treatment. There are some methods to help one horse, but then those might not work on the next horse,” explained Eades