(E51) Preliminary Assessment of the Leukocyte Coping Capacity as Stress-Marker in Horses with Various Diseases

Abstract: Background - Stress represents a serious health and welfare concern as it might induce diseases such as the equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS). Moreover, chronic diseases as orthopedic diseases that cause chronic pain can be a source of stress. The leucocyte coping capacity (LCC) quantifies the capacity of neutrophil granulocytes to produce oxygen radicals (OR). In chronic stress or pain, the capacity of the neutrophils to produce OR is reduced. Therefore, measuring the LCC could be a novel marker for chronic stress in horses. Hypothesis/Objectives – Horses with diseases leading to or caused by stress will have lower LCC than healthy horses. Animals – 46 privately owned horses presented to an ECEIM specialist for gastroscopy. Methods – In this clinical study horses were classified according to the most relevant clinical diagnosis based on clinical, laboratory and gastroscopic findings in following groups: 1) healthy, 2) lame, 3) EGUS, 4) other diseases. The LCC was measured every 5min over 90min by a portable chemiluminometer and the values compared among groups with linear mixed effect models for repeated measurements.Results – Results from our models indicate that lame horses had significant (p=0.012) lower values for LCC than healthy horses. For horses in the groups EGUS or other diseases the models showed no significant difference (p>0.05) for the LCC values compared to healthy horses.Conclusions and clinical importance – The LCC might be an indicator for stress especially in diseases where the stress is related to chronic pain as associated with chronic lameness.