The characteristics of intestinal injury peripheral to strangulating obstruction lesions in the equine small intestine

Recent studies suggest that horses requiring surgical correction of strangu lating intestinal obstruction may develop post operative complications as a result of ischaemia/ reperfusion injury. Therefore, the mucosal and serosa l margins of resected small intestine from 9 horses with small intestinal s trangulating lesions were examined for evidence of ischaemia/reperfusion in jury. Severe mucosal injury and marked elevations in myeloperoxidase activi ty were detected at ileal resection margins (n = 4), whereas the mucosa fro m proximal jejunal (n = 9) and distal jejunal (n = 5) resection margins was normal. However, the serosa from jejunal resection margins had evidence of haemorrhage and oedema, and the proximal jejunal serosa had significantly increased numbers of neutrophils. Histological injury in heal stumps is ind icative of the inability fully to resect the ileum in horses with distal sm all intestinal strangulations. One of 4 horses subjected to ileal resection was subjected to euthanasia and found to have a necrotic ileal stump. Evid ence of serosal injury and neutrophil infiltration in the proximal jejunal resection margins may predispose horses to post operative adhesions. Four o f 8 horses discharged from the hospital suffered from recurrent colic in th e post operative period.