Enzymatic markers of pulmonary inflammation in tracheal wash fluid in racehorses: alkaline phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase
Kumaş, CihanMete, Alperİnal, ŞerefMaden, Mehmet
Background: Diagnosis of the lower airway diseases (LAD) in horses relies on clinical signs, endoscopic examinationand cytologic evaluation of lower respiratory tract flushing fluids as well. Specific enzyme activities in respiratory tractfluids of horses could be used as useful indicators in lower airway disorders. The main goal of the study was to evaluate thediagnostic usefulness of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) enzyme activites in tracheal wash(TW) fluids of horses with lower respiratory tract inflammation and/or damage and also in distinguishing of non-septicand septic inflammation in racehorses with LAD.Materials, Methods & Results: A cross-sectional study was conducted in racehorses. TW fluid samples were obtainedfrom 83 racehorses (71 with lower airway diseases and 12 healthy controls) for the study. The One-Way ANOVATest was used for the significance analysis of the differences between the groups in showing the normal distributionof blood serum ALP and LDH properties. Kruskal Wallis H Test and Tamhane T2 test were used for the significanceanalysis of the differences between the groups of tracheal ALP and LDH properties, which were not normally distributed. The sampled horses were classified into 3 groups as healthy control, non septic neutrophilic inflammation(NS-LAD) and septic neutrophilic inflammation (S-LAD) according to the tracheal mucus scores determined duringendoscopic examination, clinical signs, cytologic and bacteriologic examination of collected TW samples. Accordingto cytology results normal neutrophil levels (< 20%) were determined in the healthy control group (14.5%). However, increased neutrophil levels (≥ 20% and ≥ 80%) were encountered in the NS-LAD (61.4%) and S-LAD (24.1%)groups respectively. Also, the signs of degenerative changes and presence of intracellular bacteria in the neutrophilcells in the S-LAD group were observed. Bacteriologic analysis of the samples...(AU)
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