Heaves, an asthma-like disease of horses

Pulmonary intravascular macrophages as proinflammatory cells in heaves, an asthma-like equine disease.

Heaves, an obstructive neutrophilic airway inflammation of horses, is triggered by dust components such as endotoxin and has similarities to human asthma. Pulmonary intravascular macrophages (PIMs) increase horses' sensitivity to endotoxin-induced lung inflammation; however, their role in an airborne pathology remains unknown. Therefore, we investigated the role of PIMs in the development of he...

Technical and physiological determinants of airway smooth muscle mass in endobronchial biopsy samples of asthmatic horses.

Morphometric analyses of endobronchial biopsies are commonly performed in asthma research but little is known about the technical and physiological parameters contributing to measurement variability. We investigated factors potentially affecting biopsy size, quality, and airway smooth muscle (ASM) content in heaves, an asthma-like disease of horses. Horses with heaves in clinical exacerbation (...

Profiling of Differentially Expressed Genes Using Suppression Subtractive Hybridization in an Equine Model of Chronic Asthma

BACKGROUND Gene expression analyses are used to investigate signaling pathways involved in diseases. In asthma, they have been primarily derived from the analysis of bronchial biopsies harvested from mild to moderate asthmatic subjects and controls. Due to ethical considerations, there is currently limited information on the transcriptome profile of the peripheral lung tissues in asthma. OBJE...

Heaves in Horses : Allergy or Non-specific Response to Environmental Antigens?

Intravenous and intratracheal administration of trimetoquinol, a fast-acting short-lived bronchodilator in horses with 'heaves'.

REASON FOR PERFORMING STUDY Trimetoquinol (TMQ) is a potent beta-adrenoceptor agonist bronchodilator used in human medicine but has not been evaluated for potential use as a therapeutic agent for horses with 'heaves'. OBJECTIVES To assess the pharmacodynamics of TMQ in horses with 'heaves' to determine potential therapeutic effects. METHODS Increasing doses of TMQ were administered to horse...