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Simple Summary: Colic surgery, despite the improvements in recent years, is not without risks and still has a high risk of death compared with other procedures. Although about 90% of cases of colic in horses resolve spontaneously or with medical treatment, the remaining 10% can be fatal if not treated surgically. Furthermore, postoperative complications can have important welfare and economic consequences. Studies of predictive prognosis indices, incidence of postoperative complications, and survival rates in different geographical areas may not be comparable. Consequently, there is a need to perform a study that investigates the Italian population of animals subjected to colic surgery. A total of 451 horses were included. The short-term survival rate was 68.5% for all the horses that underwent colic surgery and 80% of the horses surviving anaesthesia. Several risk factors were evaluated and age, body condition score (BCS), packed cell volume (PCV) and total plasma protein (TPP) before and after surgery, amount of reflux, type of disease, type of lesion, duration of surgery and surgeon's experience, and amount of intra- and postoperative fluids administered affected the outcome. The multivariate analysis revealed that PCV at arrival, TPP after surgery, and BCS had the highest predictive power. This is the first multicentre study in Italy and the results of this study could help surgeons choose the best treatment and clearly communicate risks to referring veterinarians and owners. Further prospective studies should be conducted to confirm the effect of predictive indices considered in this study on short-term survival. The occurrence of colic could be influenced by the characteristics of a population, geographical area, and feeding management. The aim of this study was to report the short-term postoperative complications and survival rates and to identify factors that might affect the outcome of horses that underwent colic surgery in three Italian surgical referral centres. Data of horses subjected to colic surgery in three referral centres (2018–2021) were analysed. Comparisons of the outcomes were performed using a Mann–Whitney or a Chi square test. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and multivariable logistic regression analysis were used for parameters that were significant in the previous univariate analysis. The goodness-of-fit of the model was assessed using the Akike information criterion (AIC). Significance was defined as p < 0.05, and odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated as percentages. A total of 451 horses were included. The survival rate was 68.5% of all of the horses that underwent colic surgery and 80% of the horses surviving anaesthesia. Age, BCS, PCV and TPP before and after surgery, amount of reflux, type of disease, type of lesion, duration of surgery, surgeon's experience, and amount of intra- and postoperative fluids administered influenced the probability of short-term survival. The multivariate analysis revealed that PCV at arrival, TPP after surgery, and BCS had the highest predictive power. This is the first multicentre study in Italy. The results of this study may help surgeons to inform owners regarding the prognosis of colic surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Arthrodesis of the proximal interphalangeal joint consists of the assisted fusion of the proximal and middle phalanges. The main indications for performing arthrodesis in equine patients are chronic osteoarthritis unresponsive to medical treatment, articular fractures, luxation and subluxation. This procedure can allow a return to athletic career in selected cases, or free the animal from chronic pain in others. Arthrodesis is performed through two basic steps: articular cartilage removal and bone immobilization. Whereas several methods have been studied to achieve the second one, little has been investigated for cartilage removal. The most utilized technique consists of disarticulating the joint to remove the cartilage. Other techniques have been investigated to remove enough cartilage to allow bone fusion and reduce the invasiveness of the procedure. The aims of this work were to assess the capability of a lateral drilling approach to the joint to remove a sufficient amount of cartilage, and compare it to the previously proposed dorsal drilling approach. The lateral drilling approach, especially when performed under digital fluoroscopy, turned out to be more efficient in articular cartilage removal in the proximal interphalangeal joint. The aims of the present study were to compare the percentages of articular cartilage removed using a lateral drilling approach of the proximal interphalangeal joint (PIPJ) and a dorsal drilling approach, and to assess the usefulness of digital fluoroscopy when performing a lateral drilling approach. Sixty cadaveric PIPJs were drilled using a surgical drill bit to remove the articular cartilage. The limbs were divided into three groups containing 10 forelimbs and 10 hindlimbs each. One group received the dorsal drilling approach, the second one received the lateral drilling approach and the last one received the lateral drilling approach under digital fluoroscopy guidance. The percentage of articular cartilage removed from each articular surface was assessed using Adobe Photoshop ® software. The percentages of removed cartilage turned out to be significantly higher with lateral approach, especially under fluoroscopic guidance, both in the forelimbs (p = 0.00712) and hindlimbs (p = 0.00962). In conclusion, the lateral drilling approach seems to be a minimally invasive technique with which to perform PIPJ arthrodesis, even more efficient than the previously reported dorsal approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Severe equine asthma (EA) syndrome, formerly termed Recurrent Airway Obstruction (RAO) or heaves, is one of the most common respiratory diseases in adult horses and a frequent cause of poor equine performance. The affected animals may show periods of clinical remission followed by periods of exacerbation over months to years. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the histological features, and the Neurokinin-A (NKA) and Interleukin-8 (IL-8) immunoreactivity on bronchoscopic biopsies in horses, obtained during different phases of the disease (asymptomatic, exacerbation and remission). Histological samples of EA-affected horses appeared significantly different from those of non-EA-affected horses (control group) throughout the experimental phase, from inclusion to exacerbation and remission, and intensity of NKA immunopositivity of horses with severe EA was significantly higher than that of control horses in late exacerbation and in remission phase. No significant difference between horses with severe EA in each phase and control horses was noticed for IL-8 immunoreactivity. Moreover, no influence of bronchial sampling position on histological and immunohistochemistry results was found, and it suggests that bronchial structural and functional modification during severe equine asthma tends to be distributed homogeneously throughout the respiratory tree. Severe equine asthma (EA) syndrome is a chronic obstructive disease characterized by exaggerated contraction, inflammation, and structural alteration of the airways in adult horses, when exposed to airborne molds and particulate material. However, little is known about the relationship between the degree and type of inflammation on one hand, and the severity of the disease and the response to treatment on the other. Furthermore, to date, very few studies evaluate the diagnostic value of histology and immunohistochemical features of endoscopic biopsies on subjects with severe equine asthma. To investigate the expression of two inflammatory markers (NKA and IL-8) before, during, and after the exacerbation of severe EA, a histological and immunohistochemical study was carried out on a series of biopsy samples collected by bronchoscopy from six EA-affected horses subjected to process exacerbation through environmental stimuli and then to pharmacological treatment. The application of a histological biopsy scoring system revealed a significant difference between control cases and the EA-affected horses in all experimental phases (asymptomatic, early exacerbation phase, late exacerbation phase, and remission phase). For immunohistochemistry (IHC), only the intensity of NKA positivity increases significantly between control horses and the EA horses at late exacerbation and remission phases. In EA-affected horses, a difference was detected by comparing histology between asymptomatic and remission phase, meanwhile, NKA and IL-8 showed no differences between the experimental phases. Based on these results we can assert that: (1) The endoscopic biopsies generate reliable and homogeneous samples in the entire bronchial tree; (2) the clinical improvement associated with treatment is characterized by a significant worsening of the histological findings; and (3) the NKA immunopositivity seems to increase significantly rather than decrease, as one would have expected, after pharmacological treatment. Further studies are necessary both to implement the number of samples and to use other markers of inflammation to characterize the potential role of cytokines in the diagnosis and therapeutic approach of severe equine asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]