Non-invasive respiratory assessment on the cards

By Rebecca Gibson

General news

12 March 2010 13:13

A research project, funded by The Horse Trust, has developed two new, non-invasive techniques to help vets monitor and treat horses suffering from respiratory problems. These techniques could be used in the future to screen horses for any respiratory problems and to assess whether a horse being treated for a respiratory condition is improving.

Respiratory problems are common in horses, with various surveys reporting that respiratory airway inflammation occurs in up to 50% of competition and pleasure horses. Respiratory problems not only reduce the quality of life of the horse, but are also a common cause of exercise intolerance. At present, the only techniques available to monitor respiratory inflammation are invasive, such as endoscopy. Due to being invasive, these techniques cannot be used frequently, so vets have had no way of objectively assessing whether a particular respiratory treatment or management technique is working.

The new non-invasive techniques were discovered during research led by Professor Sandy Love at the University of Glasgow. "These techniques could have a major impact on horse welfare by improving the diagnosis and treatment of this common condition," Chief Executive and Veterinary Director of The Horse Trust, Paul Jepson said.

Basically, Professor Sandy Love and his team have developed a technique that allows vets to easily monitor the frequency of coughing in a horse over a long period of time. Cough frequency is known to be a good indicator of respiratory inflammation, but manually monitoring the number of coughs for an hour each day is not cost-effective. Professor Sandy Love discovered that a digital recorder attached to a horse’s headcollar could be used to gather data, which could then be quickly analysed – one hour of coughing could be analysed within three minutes by manually examining a graph of the audio file. This analysis time could be speeded up further in a commercial setting by automating the analysis using computer software. The audio file analysis was found to be 100% effective – picking up every cough and perfectly distinguishing coughs from other noises, such as the horse stamping its feet, or a tractor starting.

The Horse Trust-funded research has also led to the development of a device – constructed using components readily available from a DIY store – that can be attached to a horse’s head to capture its breath and condense the liquids within the expired air. This device was used to analyse whether any of the substances in exhaled breath could be used as indicators of respiratory inflammation. Professor Sandy Love’s team found that the most useful indicator was the pH of the liquid condensed from the expired breath – the pH of the exhaled breath condensate was higher in horses suffering from respiratory inflammation.

“Both of these techniques could easily be commercialised to enable vets to quickly and easily monitor respiratory inflammation in horses,” Professor Sandy Love said. “They could also result in improved treatment of respiratory conditions as vets will be able to objectively assess which treatments work or don’t work for a particular horse.”