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YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2017 AAEP CONVENTION SPONSORED BY A11 TheHorse.com/AAEP2017 March 2018 THE HORSE AAEP Wrap-Up MICHELLE ANDERSON; ALEXANDRA BECKSTETT; ERICA LARSON E ach year the convention kicks off with a rapid-fire run through some of the past year's most important equine studies. The 2017 edition of Kester News Hour featured Robert MacKay, BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, a professor at the University of Florida, presenting medi- cine studies; Elizabeth Santschi, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, a professor of equine surgery at Kansas State University, on surgery; and Regina Turner, VMD, PhD, Dipl. ACT, chief of the Section of Reproduction and Behavior at the University of Pennsylva- nia's New Bolton Center, on reproduction. Here were their top selections. SAA, Asthma, & Respiratory Infection Serum amyloid A (SAA), a protein the body produces in response to inflamma- tion, is undetectable in healthy horses but increases within six to 12 hours of inflammation onset. That means an SAA test could potentially indicate a horse is sick before he shows signs of disease. Vets might also use SAA to differentiate horses with infectious respiratory diseases from those with allergy-related asthma. This could help them monitor horses at events to help prevent or track disease outbreaks. Researchers measured SAA in healthy horses and those with equine asthma, equine herpesvirus-4, equine influenza, and strangles. They evaluated 207 horses using a commercial horse-side assay with a recommended cutoff of 50 μg/mL to dis- tinguish between infectious and noninfec- tious inflammatory conditions and found: ■ Only one of 40 healthy horses had SAA levels above 0 μg/mL, but they were well below the cutoff at 3.2 μg/mL; ■ Only two of 30 equine asthma cases had SAA levels above the cutoff; ■ 117 of the 129 horses with respiratory infections had levels above the cutoff. Since the SAA levels of horses with viral and bacterial infections didn't differ, SAA isn't useful in telling them apart. It can help vets distinguish between infectious and noninfectious respiratory disease. "This is useful for the veterinarian to figure out if the coughing horse is also an infectious horse," MacKay said. THO Treatment Outcome Review Temporohyoid osteoarthropathy (THO) is a rare cause of neurologic disease characterized by facial and vestibuloco- chlear (related to hearing and balance) nerve deficits. The condition causes head- tilting and ear, face, and muzzle paralysis. Because THO is rare, studies on the disease and patient outcomes are few. Re- searchers performed a retrospective study on the outcomes of 77 horses diagnosed with and treated for THO 1990-2014. Treatment for THO typically includes either medical management or surgery. Historically, surgical intervention included one of two procedures: ceratohyoid ostectomy (CHO, involving removal of the ceratohyoid bone, which is near the skin and easily accessible for the surgeon on dissection) and partial stylohyoid ostectomy (PSHO, which involves remov- ing a section of the stylohyoid bone and requires a larger incision and a deeper dissection). Because PSHO is a more invasive procedure, CHO has become the surgical treatment of choice for THO. The team looked at how many horses in each treatment group improved and how many horses died due to THO. Compared with CHO, medical treat- ment was significantly associated with nonsurvival. The researchers found no significant difference in survival between COURTESY AAEP The Top Equine Studies of 2017