Activity monitors, which are small pedometerlike instruments, have been used in some scientific studies in horses, but they are still not widely used. Scientists have asked whether we’re missing the boat or overestimating the applicability of this technology. In a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dorothy Cimino Brown, DVM, MSCE, Dipl. A

Surgeons from Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine have given a facelift to a standard procedure that removes part of a horse’s penis secondary to damage or disease.

Very high doses of vitamin E appear to benefit older horses’ immune systems and could be an inexpensive means of battling “immunosenescence”–the decline in immune function because of the aging process.

Can you or your veterinarian accurately assess lameness and/or pain in your laminitic horse? This is the question a research team led by Ignacio Vinuela-Fernandez, DVM, MSc, asked, knowing how important it is to manage the pain in horses that develop laminitis. “Laminitis is a common and potentially devastating condition that is a major welfare concern when ineffectively managed,” explained

Lead a veterinarian to a horse with equine Cushing’s disease and he or she will likely try to diagnose the horse by measuring blood levels of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) in a single sample at a single point in time. Lead researchers from Pegasus Equine Diagnostics Ltd., in Nottingham, United Kingdom to the same horse and they’ll measure ACTH levels over 24 hours at multiple t

Music might be an outburst of the soul (Frederick Delius) but strangles is an outburst of a horse’s lymph nodes, and when you put the two together it amounts to many disappointed fans of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP’s) famed Musical Ride. Equine strangles is a highly infectious disease of horses caused by the bacterium Streptococcus equi that causes a thick, greenish nasal discharge,

A specially designed surgical laser can help control fluid pressures in the eyes of horses with glaucoma and help maintain vision, but it does not alleviate the need for the continued use of topical eye medications, according to David A. Wilkie, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVO, and colleagues from the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University and The Ohio State University (OSU).

Two novel discoveries about how different types of tendons age and “refresh” themselves made by researchers from University College London in the United Kingdom help explain why aging horses are atrisk for tendon injury. Tendons play key roles in locomotion as they are the link between muscles and bones. Ten

A cream containing 5% imiquimod (an immune-boosting drug) effectively and completely treated aural plaques in horses, but side effects of the drug (e.g., inflammatory reaction) limit the cream’s usefulness, reported a group of researchers from Minnesota and California.

Aural plaques are usually white, crusty lesions covering a layer of shiny red skin found on the inside (concave surface) of a

Lasering the soft palate of horses for treating dorsal displacement of the soft palate (DDSP) causes scarring but does not “stiffen” the palate as hypothesized, reported Kira Alkabes, DVM, from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University.

Three horses all on a single premise in Cochise County, Ariz., remain the only horses in the country currently diagnosed with vesicular stomatitis (VS) virus.

VS is a disease that causes blister-like lesions in the mouth and on the dental pad, tongue, lips, nostrils, hooves, prepuce, and teats of livestock in the southwestern United States.

“Arizona hasn’t had a case since 2005,” repor

Portable, hand-held blood analyzers that measure various blood values such as electrolytes and pH are a valuable tool and provide improved patient care, reports a Brazilian research team led by Juliana Peiró, DVM, PhD, from the Department of Clinics, Surgery, and Animal Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, Unviersidade Estadual Paulista. “When diagnosed early,