JOURNAL UPDATE
Influence of Disease
Process and Duration on
Acute Phase Proteins in
Serum and Peritoneal Fluid
of Horses with Colic
Pihl T.H., et al (2015) J Vet Intern Med 29:651–658
Summarised by Patrick Page BVSc MMedVet(Med)Eq
Why they did it
Monitoring of inflammatory biomarkers in blood and
peritoneal fluid may assist in differentiation of colic
cases requiring medical and surgical treatment. The
acute phase proteins, serum amyloid A (SAA), haptoglobin and fibrinogen, have been identified as valuable biomarkers and increase in response to equine
inflammatory disorders.
What they did
A prospective, multicentre, observational study of
clinical data, as well as blood and peritoneal fluid biomarkers was conducted on horses admitted to two
referral hospitals, the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital, University of Pretoria, and the University Hospital for Large Animals, University of Copenhagen.
The effect of disease process (colic due to simple obstruction, strangulating obstruction, or inflammatory
condition), demographics (age, sex, breed), anatomical disease location