b'YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2017 AAEP CONVENTION SPONSORED BYThe Top Equine Studies of 2017COURTESY AAEPMICHELLE ANDERSON;those with allergy-related asthma. Thischaracterized by facial and vestibuloco- ALEXANDRA BECKSTETT;could help them monitor horses at eventschlear (related to hearing and balance) ERICA LARSON to help prevent or track disease outbreaks.nerve deficits. The condition causes head-Researchers measured SAA in healthytilting and ear, face, and muzzle paralysis. with a rapid-fire run through someequine herpesvirus-4, equine influenza,disease and patient outcomes are few. Re-E ach year the convention kicks offhorses and those with equine asthma,Because THO is rare, studies on the of the past years most importantand strangles. They evaluated 207 horsessearchers performed a retrospective study equine studies. The 2017 edition of Kesterusing a commercial horse-side assay withon the outcomes of 77 horses diagnosed News Hour featured Robert MacKay,a recommended cutoff of 50 g/mL to dis- with and treated for THO 1990-2014. BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, a professor attinguish between infectious and noninfec- Treatment for THO typically includes the University of Florida, presenting medi- tious inflammatory conditions and found:either medical management or surgery. cine studies; Elizabeth Santschi, DVM,Only one of 40 healthy horses had SAAHistorically, surgical intervention included Dipl. ACVS, a professor of equine surgerylevels above 0 g/mL, but they wereone of two procedures: ceratohyoid at Kansas State University, on surgery;well below the cutoff at 3.2 g/mL; ostectomy (CHO, involving removal of and Regina Turner, VMD, PhD, Dipl. ACT,Only two of 30 equine asthma casesthe ceratohyoid bone, which is near the chief of the Section of Reproduction andhad SAA levels above the cutoff;skin and easily accessible for the surgeon Behavior at the University of Pennsylva- 117 of the 129 horses with respiratoryon dissection) and partial stylohyoid nias New Bolton Center, on reproduction.infections had levels above the cutoff. ostectomy (PSHO, which involves remov-Here were their top selections. Since the SAA levels of horses with viraling a section of the stylohyoid bone and and bacterial infections didnt differ, SAArequires a larger incision and a deeper SAA, Asthma, & Respiratory Infection isnt useful in telling them apart. It candissection). Because PSHO is a more Serum amyloid A (SAA), a protein thehelp vets distinguish between infectiousinvasive procedure, CHO has become the body produces in response to inflamma- and noninfectious respiratory disease.surgical treatment of choice for THO.tion, is undetectable in healthy horsesThis is useful for the veterinarian toThe team looked at how many horses in but increases within six to 12 hours offigure out if the coughing horse is also aneach treatment group improved and how inflammation onset. That means an SAAinfectious horse, MacKay said. many horses died due to THO.test could potentially indicate a horse isCompared with CHO, medical treat-sick before he shows signs of disease. VetsTHO Treatment Outcome Review ment was significantly associated with might also use SAA to differentiate horsesTemporohyoid osteoarthropathy (THO)nonsurvival. The researchers found no with infectious respiratory diseases fromis a rare cause of neurologic diseasesignificant difference in survival between March 2018THE HORSE AAEP Wrap-Up TheHorse.com/AAEP2017 A11'