It is baby season! We would love to see all of our clients foals hitting the ground this spring! Make sure to tag us in your foal photos or comment them below!
The pastern joint is a very small joint near the horse's hoof which can make dealing with problems here more challenging. This horse had quite the chip fragment that Dr. Caniglia and Dr. Davis are removing arthroscopically. Arthroscopy is less invasive to the joint and removal of this fragment will prevent further development of arthritis in this horse. In the video you can see Dr. Caniglia dissecting the fragment free using a synovial resector. Thanks Weston Davis Equine Surgery for the help with this case!
Electrochemotherapy
Electrochemotherapy is a recent advancement in our repertoire for equine medicine as an additional treatment modality for local control of solid neoplasms. It involves the combination of chemotherapeutics injected locally with the application of permeabilizing electric pulses that promote the uptake of these drugs by cancer cells. The uptake can be increased 700 fold for certain chemotherapeutic agents which greatly enhances efficacy. In addition, ECT temporarily interrupts the blood flow to the tumor which aids in its ability to kill cancer cells. ECT is an excellent choice for equine skin tumors due to ease of administration, effectiveness, and low morbidity.
This horse had a large squamous cell carcinoma that had invaded the regional lymph nodes. Due to its location, complete removal was not a possibility. The tumor had failed to respond to more conventional treatments and was growing larger in size. The tumor was debulked and treated with several rounds of ECT with bleomycin. As you can see the treatment has been very effective in this difficult case.
ECT is a novel therapy and not widely available to equine patients. We are pleased to be able to have this therapy available at Wolf Creek Equine Hospital. If you horse is struggling with a sarcoid, squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, or other skin tumor, please give us a call.
