A SCORING SYSTEM FOR GASTRIC-ULCERS IN THE HORSE

Five investigators familiar with gastric ulcer disease in horses met t o establish a scoring system that could be utilised in future studies, Slides of gastric lesions were viewed and discussed and a scoring sys tem established that required the nonglandular and glandular portions of the stomach to be graded separately, Each portion of the stomach (g landular and nonglandular) received a scare for number of ulcers prese nt and a score for severity of ulcers which resulted in each stomach r eceiving 4 separate scores, After the grading system was developed, ea ch investigator independently graded 16 horses with gastric ulcer dise ase that had been previously recorded ore video tape, The results of e ach investigator's scores were then compared, There was a variability between observers in the scares for severity of both nonglandular and glandular lesions but the variability was not significant. The variabi lity between observers for the number of glandular lesions was also no t significant. This implied that there was consistency between the 5 o bservers in the way severity of lesions was scored and the number of g landular lesions. However, there was a significant variability between observers for the number of nonglandular lesions which implied agreem ent on this observation was more variable.