Inflammation can help the body when injured or sick by delivering immune cells, promoting healing and more. Chronic or excessive inflammation, however, can cause further damage and lead to additional disease or injury. Clinicians often rely on patient history and current complaints, along with physical examination and blood tests, to determine if inflammation is acute or chronic - but that becomes complicated when the patient is a horse.
Early detection of inflammation in horses is crucial to allow for timely treatment, which can prevent chronic issues, reduce pain, and improve the animals' overall well-being and performance. A test called a complete blood count (CBC), which is also used in humans to quantify blood cells and measure their characteristics, is routinely used by veterinarians to assess health status, but current reference intervals used in CBCs are not designed to specifically detect inflammation. To enhance the ability to identify inflammation in horses using CBCs, a team of animal scientists at Penn State developed inflammatory indices - mathematical combinations of complete blood count values - that serve as biomarkers that more accurately reflect inflammation indicators in CBC results. These indices integrate information from different white blood cell subtypes and platelets to provide a composite picture of the body's inflammatory status.
Their study is available online now ahead of publication in the December issue of the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science.
