Anatomy and Physiology Part 11: Of Blood and Breath

There are few similarities between horses and automobiles, but in a manner of speaking, the horse’s circulatory and respiratory systems constitute its engine. The food a horse consumes is its fuel. The fuel is converted into nutritional energy that

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Ultrasonography for Laryngeal Evaluation

Endoscopy is the current diagnostic method of choice for evaluating the equine upper airway. However, veterinarians at Cornell University for the first time have described ultrasound techniques for evaluating the equine larynx, and they say the

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Upper Respiratory Obstructions

United Kingdom researchers found that dorsal displacement of the soft palate and palatal instability were to blame for poor performance in 78.5% of the horses examined in a recent treadmill study of Thoroughbred racehorses. They also found that

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Influenza Cases Emerge in Paso Fino Show Horses

At least 15 cases of equine influenza were detected in the wake of the Paso Fino Horse Association’s 34th Annual Grand National Championship Show, which was held Sept. 17-23 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds and AgriCenter in Perry,

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Guelph Researchers Working on New Vaccine

Canadian researchers are working to develop a more effective vaccine for Rhodococcus equi that they hope will protect foals as young as three weeks of age from the harmful bacterium.


Rhodococcus equi lives in the soil

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Internal Insights

Veterinary internal medicine is a growing specialty that boasts nearly 400 large animal internal medicine specialists, many of them focusing on horses. In a time when humans seek out experts in varying medical fields, it’s only logical that we seek

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Respiratory Disease: Not So Easy Breathing

The terms recurrent airway obstruction (RAO or heaves) and inflammatory airway disease (IAD) are often wrongfully used interchangeably to describe horses with non-infectious respiratory disease.

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Predicting Pulmonary Hypertension

“Significant pulmonary hypertension is known to occur secondary to recurrent airway obstruction in horses,” researchers said. “How this relates to disease severity or long-term prognosis is not known. In part, this may be due to the difficulty and/or

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Discussed

Rhodococcus equi is a bacterium in the soil that can travel to, and multiply within, the foal’s lungs, causing a deadly pneumonia if it is not caught and treated early. Hines described the possibility of developing vaccines with genetic targets that

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Foals are Interferon-Gamma Deficient at Birth

Newborn foals are deficient in a certain protein released by white blood cells that is essential for protection against the bacterium Rhodococcus equi and other pathogens, stated scientists at the University of Kentucky’s Gluck Equine

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Strangles Vaccines and Immunity to Streptococcus equi

Equine strangles is caused by Streptococcus equi, a biovar, or clonal descendent of an ancestral S. zooepidemicus. Recovery from the disease is accompanied by onset of acquired resistance to the disease in approximately 75% of horses, an immunity that persists for 5 years or longer — hence the greater incidence of strangles in younger horses.

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