Large or Food Animal and Equine Medicine Commons^™

The Role Of Systemic Inflammation In The Development Of Equine Laminitis, Elizabeth Maryrose Tadros

Doctoral Dissertations

Laminitis is a crippling disease of horses that can result in chronic lameness and debilitation, and sometimes warrants euthanasia. It is a complication of inflammatory conditions such as gastrointestinal disease, and also occurs in obese, insulin-resistant horses with Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS). Inflammation and insulin resistance are risk factors for laminitis, and these mechanisms might converge to induce laminitis in susceptible animals.

Systemic inflammation is often attributed to endotoxemia, although circulating endotoxin concentrations are not commonly measured in the clinical setting. Although a theoretic basis exists for endotoxemia in the pathogenesis of laminitis, administration of endotoxin alone does …