GASTRIC-LESIONS IN HORSES - HIGH-INCIDENC E IN GASTROSCOPIC SURVEY

A bibliographic overview of the incidence of gastric ulcers in adult h orses, their clinical symptoms, and their treatment is given. Followed by a digest about the aetiopathogenesis of peptic ulcers in man and a bout the possible pathogenic factors in horses. For the period of one year, in the clinic for horses of the veterinary school in Hanover, ga stroendoscopy was performed on 139 horses. The gastroendoscopy was per formed only on sick horses that frequently had signs of abdominal disc omfort. All the patients were examined immediately after arriving in t he clinic and gastric lesions were found in 75 horses. The lesions wer e mostly found in the squamous mucosa near the margo plicatus, the les ser curvature and in the squamous fundus. Lesions were graded and thei r endoscopic appearance was described. In special cases changed mucosa was histologically examined. The samples were taken transendoscopical ly. By the side of erosive and ulcerative changes in the mucosa altera tions in the form of ''reflux-damages'' were often found. The frequent ly observed clinical signs which usually reflected the presence of sev ere lesions were bruxism and periprandial colic. These clinical signs could be observed in 22 horses with gastric lesions. On the other side 6 horses without lesions showed these clinical symptoms. As a conclus ion we found out, that gastroendoscopically visible defects in,the gas tric mucosa in horses should be better named as gastric lesions, if th ere is no histological examination. Furthermore it seems to be importa nt respectively helpful to perform a gastroendoscopy on all horses tha t show the clinical signs of bruxism and periprandial colic and on all horses char have signs of abdominal discomfort.