Surgery at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital

 

 

Hello again from the great Bluegrass state! The last two weeks have been pretty full, and I apologize for my blog absence. Hopefully this week I’ll be able to get in 2 blogs for y’all!

On any given day here at RREH, we see as many as 20-25 surgeries a day. We are fortunate to have the staff capabilities, as well as multiple boarded surgeons, to be able to drop and complete as many as 3-4 surgeries or anesthetized procedures at one time. If you have never seen an equine surgery from start to finish, you may or may not realize how much of a production the whole process is, and how skilled of a team it takes to get a horse safely in, through, and out of surgery. At RREH, the team may consist of 3 surgery technicians (it takes that many bodies alone to get the horse from standing to recumbent, but usually only 1 actually “techs” the surgery), an anesthetist (usually a trained RVT/LVT or an anesthesia intern), a surgical intern, the surgeon himself, and a team of 2-3 recovery guys.

Currently, we are in the middle of “weanling and yearling” season, meaning that many of our surgeries are done on yearlings (>1 yr of age) or weanlings (usually <6 mos age) to correct minor to moderate angular limb deformities prior to the major fall thoroughbred sales. The main ones, which comprise maybe 50-75% of our daily caseload , include:

1. transcutaneous periosteal transection (“periosteal stripping”): A basic “outpatient” procedure that is done to correct angular limb deformities in younger foals, a.k.a. the weanlings. This procedure is done in an effort to encourage accelerated long bone growth on the concave side of the bone. These can be done in both the carpi (“ front knees”) and fetlocks (“ankles”).

2. transphyseal screws: Again, another basic “outpatient” procedure that is done in both weanlings and yearlings in an effort to retard long bone growth on only the convex side of the bone. The screw is placed in an diagonal fashion through the growth plate, and essentially slow the growth on that side while allowing the other to “catch up”. These can be done in both the carpi and fetlocks as well.

3. transphyseal screw removals: The reverse of #2 – once the long bone has corrected itself, the screws have to be taken out in order to not “overcorrect” and cause a deformity in the opposite direction.

4. joint arthroscopies: These surgeries usually require at least an overnight stay at the hospital and are most commonly done on mature yearlings or current adult racehorses. The most common joints that are “scoped” tend to be the stifles, hocks, and fetlocks, but occasionally we see a carpus or two that require arthroscopic evaluation. The most common reason that we scope joints are to remove osteochondral fragments (“chips”), to resurface the joint cartilage following damage, to remove osteochondral lesions (OCD), or to remove subchondral cystic lesions (“bone cysts”). The goal of these procedures is to eliminate a source of pain in the joint or to prevent severe arthritis from developing because of an existing lesion. These procedures are minimally invasive and involve the use of a camera and light source inserted into the joint pouch itself by means of a trocar and cannula. These instruments allow the surgeon to see the joint on a TV screen and operate based off of that image.

Some of the other surgeries we’ve seen in the last week have been tie-backs (arytenoid chondroplasty and arytenoidectomy), cryptorchid castrations, arthrodesis, more Basket surgeries, and long bone fracture repairs. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures of these and other surgeries for you in the future, but for now, I’ll leave you with some images from my trail runs. Again, I am so blessed to be in a place that values its equine industry, and has so many rolling hills and green pastures! Once surgeries slow down and I can head out on farm calls, I’ll post some farm pictures for you.

 Runs on the Legacy Trail in Lexington, KY

 

The entire city is gearing up for the Belmont this weekend, and that may be the topic of my next post – so stay tuned. Best of luck to all of the amazing athletes running this weekend!

Look closely - you'll see my double rainbow!