Study database
Follows a group over time. It shows associations, never a cause: the decisive difference often sits outside what was measured.
HOHorse
In 80 clinically healthy horses under twelve years old with monthly sampling over a year, the upper reference limits were 21.4 pg/ml in early summer, 60.6 in autumn and 22.3 in winter: the shape of the annual rhythm matches that seen elsewhere, the height of the limits is specific to place and laboratory.
HOHorse
In 81 clinically unremarkable horses at two sites, with monthly sampling over twelve months, the rise is not confined to the autumn months but is linked to the change in photoperiod; the upper limits differed markedly between Perth and Townsville and must be determined site by site.
HOHorse
In 201 apparently healthy horses at nine sites, animals over fifteen sit higher all year and additionally show a more pronounced autumn rise, which is why season and age must enter together into the reading of a basal value.
HOHorse
Two assay methods differed by 38.6 pg/ml on average in autumn and by only 5.1 in spring; of 88 ponies sampled in both seasons, 56 were above 47 pg/ml in autumn, of which 39 were back below 29 pg/ml the following spring without treatment, which the authors attribute to an altered pituitary peptide pattern in autumn.
HOHorse
Over twelve months in 63 horses, values after stimulation were lowest from February to May and highest from August to October; accuracy exceeded that of the basal value, but detection of affected animals was not meaningfully better all year, and the gain concerned mainly animals without clear clinical signs.
HOHorse
In a cohort of 374 ponies with no previous laminitis followed over 891 pony-years, ACTH was not independently associated with laminitis; what remained in the joint model were fasting insulin, insulin after a sugar dose, adiponectin and diverging hoof growth, with estimated four-year frequencies of 6, 22 and 69 per cent across the three insulin groups.
HOHorse
Of 113 casted horses, 14, that is 12 per cent, developed supporting-limb laminitis; only body weight and cast duration were significantly associated, not the presence of a fracture, the limb affected or the breed.
HOHorse
Across 47,396 general anaesthetics from 93 centres in 28 countries, mortality within seven days was 1.2 per cent overall and 0.6 per cent excluding colic; among the 227 deaths outside colic, fractures came first at 35.7 per cent, predominantly during the recovery phase.
HOHorse
In 245 racehorses operated on standing, survival to discharge was 98 per cent and return to racing 75.1 per cent after a median of 241 days, with no meaningful difference in performance before and after the procedure; the cases involved selected fracture forms.
HOHorse
Of 155 horses with internal fixation, 14.2 per cent developed a surgical site infection, and the affected animals left the clinic alive twelve times less often; no protective effect of local antibiotic delivery could be shown.
MUMultiple species
Sheep on loaded pastures carried hypoglycin A in their blood, without signs of illness and without abnormal blood values, and neither rumen fluid nor equine gastric juice broke the substance down in the test tube; a more resistant metabolism in sheep remains a supposition of the authors.
HOHorse
In 263 National Hunt horses a tendon change was found in 24 per cent of cases over two seasons, with a spread between training yards of 10 to 40 per cent that was classed as not established; routine ultrasound at three-month intervals could not predict the acute rupture.
HOHorse
In 113 racehorses followed up, the re-injury rate after cell implantation was 27.4 per cent, and 25.7 per cent in National Hunt horses, which was lower than in published historical comparison groups.
HOHorse
In 235 horses from three outbreaks, examined six months to two years afterwards, neither clinical examination, nor the white blood cells, nor serum amyloid A, nor serology distinguished the carriers from non-carriers in the same group; three of the twelve horses positive on culture were negative on serology.
HOHorse
In two natural outbreaks the proportion of carriers stood at 3 per cent on culture against 15 per cent on PCR, and at 13 against 37 per cent in the second herd; a carrier negative on culture became culture-positive again eight months later, which is why the authors class horses positive on PCR as carrying live bacteria.
HOHorse
Among 41 Icelandic horses all positive at the outset, of 24 animals later spared only 4 were negative on three consecutive weekly samples, against 10 of 11 horses with at least three negative samples spread over several months; repeated samples at several time points can support freedom from carriage, but cannot prove it.
HOHorse
In ten persistent carriers from an Icelandic outbreak, of 115 samples taken at eleven time points over thirteen months 61 were positive on PCR and 32 of those on culture as well; sequencing of the surface gene showed that the strain changes within the carrier and that changed forms pass on to further horses.
HOHorse
In three protracted outbreaks, 29 to 52 per cent of the horses sampled were infected, and 9 to 44 per cent of the infected animals still carried the organism after the signs had faded, predominantly in the guttural pouch and for up to eight months; prolonged carriage ended of its own accord in no animal before treatment.
HOHorse
In 122 air-transported Warmblood sport horses, a serum amyloid A cut-off of 23 micrograms per millilitre 24 hours after arrival separated healthy from sick animals with about 93 per cent sensitivity and 91 per cent specificity, while rectal temperature identified only about 3 per cent of the sick animals; two co-authors were employed by the manufacturer of the rapid test used.
HOHorse
Retrospective cohort of 397 newborn foals: septic animals had a median value of 114 micrograms per millilitre against 1.5 in sick non-septic and 0 in healthy foals; at the threshold of 100 the specificity was 97.5 per cent, but the sensitivity only 52.9 per cent.
HOHorse
In 176 adult horses with acute colitis the serum amyloid A value on admission did not differ between survivors (median 548 milligrams per litre) and non-survivors (396); what carried prognostic information were lactate, heart rate, age and a duration of colic of more than 24 hours.
HOHorse
Only the respirable and not the inhalable dust fraction was linked to the proportion of neutrophils, and higher mast cell and neutrophil proportions went with measurably poorer racing performance.
HOHorse
In 446 ponies aged seven and over that were free of laminitis at the outset, low adiponectin and high insulin went together with the later occurrence of laminitis, which was diagnosed after one, two and three years in 4.0, 6.7 and 9.9 per cent of the animals.
HOHorse
In a prospective cohort of 1,070 animals with 123 episodes there was no meaningful difference in frequency between the seasons, and barely half of the episodes were diagnosed by a vet, which is why analyses of veterinary cases alone underestimate the frequency.
HOHorse
Of 37 ponies on a starch-rich ration 14 fell ill, graded by the insulin response to sugar given by mouth, from no animal in the lowest band to six of seven in the highest, while a raised ACTH without clinical signs was only weakly linked to laminitis.
HOHorse
In 126 radiographs from 50 horses the lucent zone between inner hoof wall and pedal bone separated acute cases from sound horses well; the measurement was made in animals already classed as laminitic and without histological confirmation, so it is not a screening test.
HOHorse
159 operated Thoroughbred racehorses improved significantly more than comparison horses matched for age, sex, race type, trainer and period, while eight horses developed unilateral wasting of the back muscles with nerve involvement and allocation was clinical rather than random.
HOHorse
In 941 out-of-hours cases, 23.9 per cent were critical and 18 per cent of the horses were put down; a raised heart rate, age and an altered mucous membrane colour remained associated with the critical outcome in the joint analysis.
HOHorse
Over one year on 31 premises with 1,427 horses, the crude incidence was 10.6 colic cases per 100 horse years, three quarters of the episodes were mild, and 28 per cent of all deaths were due to colic, more than to any other single cause.
HOHorse
In the same cohort, a previous colic, changes in concentrate and hay feeding and large amounts of concentrate were associated with markedly raised odds of colic, while premises-level characteristics made no independent contribution.
HOHorse
Among 896 Thoroughbred mares with surgically treated large colon volvulus, 88 per cent survived to discharge, and the duration of colic signs before admission was independently associated with survival, the median of that duration being two hours.
HOHorse
Of 375 colic horses treated, 88 per cent survived to discharge, 91 per cent of those treated medically and 77 per cent of those treated surgically, with small intestinal lesions carrying a worse prognosis than large intestinal lesions.
HOHorse
Of 244 horses operated on, 203 were discharged and 176 followed for at least four years: 44.8 per cent developed complications after discharge, most often further colic, and a higher complication score before discharge went with lower long-term survival.
HOHorse
In a nine-month field study with 66 horses on one yard, the frequency of colic and lameness was lower in the active open barn than in single boxes (0 against 5 per cent and 18 against 26 per cent respectively), while more wounds occurred, without more lost training.
HOHorse
Of 225 young horses followed prospectively, 34.7 per cent developed an abnormal behaviour, crib-biting 10.5 per cent at a median of 20 weeks and weaving 4.6 per cent at 60 weeks; concentrate feed after weaning went with a more than fourfold raised rate of newly appearing crib-biting, and simple changes to feeding, housing and weaning could lower the frequency substantially.
HOHorse
From 2,637 counts in 303 horses the repeatability came to 0.52, which the authors read as output stable enough to identify high shedders selectively; the same value means that about half the spread is not due to differences between horses.
HOHorse
In eight healthy horses clioquinol acted broadly against bacteria rather than specifically against protozoa, with a 90 per cent fall in species diversity on day five, the spread of facultatively anaerobic families and salmonellae detected in the droppings of several animals; the authors urge restraint.
HOHorse
In 81 Icelandic horses coming straight off pasture, the frequency of a significant squamous lesion reached 71.6 per cent and fell to 25.4 per cent after eight weeks of training with conserved forage fed regularly; the authors attribute this to the forage feeding.
HOHorse
In 150 horses examined for declining performance, the behaviour score under saddle fell from a median of 9 to 2 out of 24 points after a musculoskeletal source of pain had been removed, in some cases with a change of saddle, with no link between behaviour score and degree of lameness.
HOHorse
In 259 non-lame Standardbreds with declining performance, moderate equine asthma and gastric disease were the most frequent diagnoses, ahead of exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage, dynamic narrowing of the upper airways, cardiac rhythm disturbances and exertional myopathies.
HOHorse
In nine show jumpers from the same yard, the gastric score and the behaviour score under saddle fell together after twelve weeks on a low-starch ration and were strongly correlated, but without a comparison group and without random allocation, so the direction of the link remains open.
HOHorse
In 35 horses undergoing colic surgery, total magnesium was below the reference range in 17 per cent and ionised magnesium in 54 per cent before the operation; total values were considerably less sensitive for detecting a deficiency.
HOHorse
Among 75 sick and 26 healthy horses, hypomagnesaemia occurred in 47 per cent of animals with obstructive intestinal disease against 4 per cent of controls; unlike in human intensive care patients, it was not linked to mortality.
HOHorse
In six Franches-Montagnes stallions under identical conditions over twelve months the lesions tended to worsen in autumn and in early spring, but no clear link with rainfall appeared, since high scores were just as often preceded by low as by heavy rainfall; the observations count as preliminary.
HUHuman
Combining sequencing with cell counting revealed microbial loads differing by up to tenfold between healthy people; the familiar contrast between Bacteroides and Prevotella turned out to be an artefact of the relative-abundance representation.
HOHorse
In sixteen clinically unremarkable horses, short REM sleep derived solely from filmed posture went with poorer performance in a reversal learning test; ten of the sixteen animals stayed below the widespread threshold of 30 minutes, which the study applies without citing a source.
HOHorse
In 510 pre-purchase examinations with radiographs in 61.6 per cent of cases, a high grade of finding at the navicular bone and the pedal bone was associated with lameness, at the hock less often, and 20 of 21 horses with the highest grade in the small hock joints were still in work at follow-up; the authors call for interpretation in the light of the clinical examination.
HOHorse
Of 1,162 radiographed yearlings, 946, that is 81 per cent, made at least one start; most findings did not affect later performance, and even for the three least favourable findings the majority of affected horses ran, which is why the authors want their results understood only as a supplement to the clinical impression.
HOHorse
Among 3,863 German warmbloods presented without lameness, 4.25 per cent had cyst-like lesions, most often in the pastern bone and the femoral condyles; agreement between two readings was very good only for objective features, and missing projections probably led to findings being overlooked.
HOHorse
Only certain sesamoid findings went along with a lower chance of a race start and with earnings roughly halved, while the common flattening of the outer surface showed no effect and had usually disappeared by the two-year-old sales; the authors suggest reporting such findings separately rather than in an overall grade.
HOHorse
Lucencies beneath the cartilage of the medial femoral condyle were present in 9.65 per cent of 2,508 yearlings; at the most severe grade 78 per cent started against 84 per cent with an unremarkable stifle, with no effect on the performance of those that ran, and mild grades partly regressed, eleven of 31 disappearing by the two-year-old sales.
HOHorse
In 58 young sport horses radiographed twice, on average at 407 and 680 days of life, 9 of 36 lesions had changed between the examinations, had newly appeared or had disappeared, and four horses carried their finding at only one of the two appointments: the finding is therefore not stable after the first year of life.
HOHorse
Lusitano foals showed radiographic signs of osteochondrosis at the hock or the stifle in 76.08 per cent of cases before their first month of life and still in 16.20 per cent at 18 months, with regression up to the twelfth month and thus later than the age limits assumed until then would suggest.
HOHorse
Of 1,082 yearlings, 82, that is 7.6 per cent, never made a start; there was a statistical association between certain findings and the missing start, yet among twelve horses traced individually none had failed because of the finding, which leads the authors themselves to question a causal link.
HOHorse
In four groups from the same environment followed for at least nine years, 62.5 per cent of the parent animals first exposed as adults fell ill, against 21.4 per cent of the full siblings exposed while young and none of the animals exposed from birth: the timing of first exposure weighed more heavily than predisposition.
HOHorse
Of 16 imported Icelandic horses none fell ill in the first summer and 9 did in the second, so that sensitisation takes at least one season; individual antibody classes were already raised before the signs appeared.
SPSpecies-independent
236 publications from endorsing and non-endorsing journals: in 2015 both groups stood at around 60 per cent of items fully reported, with no difference between the groups; not a single paper reported every item, and bias-relevant information was missing particularly often.
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