If they had a way to easily diagnose it in a foal or in the adults before it was bred that would be great. But as far as I know they don't. As I said - any Peruvian breeder who has no history of this problem in their lines should advertise it far and wide. Which they probably do. This is the place to buy a Peruvian. From a breeder who will stand behind their stock. But to adopt a Peruvian of known ancestry is really asking for problems.
This one is from April of 06. I'm looking for additional information. Studies do take time from planning to conclusions so 06 is fairly recent.
Degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis as a systemic disorder characterized by proteoglycan accumulation
Jaroslava Halper1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/article/email-ca.gif (http://www.biomedcentral.com/logon/logon.asp?msg=ce), Byoungjae Kim* 1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/article/email.gif (http://www.biomedcentral.com/logon/logon.asp?msg=ce), Ahrar Khan* 2 http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/article/email.gif (http://www.biomedcentral.com/logon/logon.asp?msg=ce), Jung Hae Yoon3 http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/article/email.gif (http://www.biomedcentral.com/logon/logon.asp?msg=ce) and PO Eric Mueller4 http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/article/email.gif (http://www.biomedcentral.com/logon/logon.asp?msg=ce)
1Department of Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
2Department of Veterinary Pathology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
3Columbus Children's Research Institute, 700 Children's Drive, Columbus, OH, 43205, USA
4Department of Large Animal Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcimages/article/email.gif author emailhttp://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcimages/article/email-ca.gif corresponding author email* Contributed equally
BMC Veterinary Research 2006, 2:12doi:10.1186/1746-6148-2-12
Published: 12 April 2006
http://dsldequine.info/
a quote from it
The pathogenesis remains unclear, though the disease appears to run in families. Treatment and prevention are empirical and supportive, and not effective in halting the progression of the disease. Presently, the presumptive diagnosis of DSLD is obtained from patient signalment and history, clinical examination, and ultrasonographic examination of clinically affected horses, and is confirmed at post mortem examination. Presently, there are no reliable methods of diagnosing DSLD in asymptomatic horses. The goal of this study was to characterize and define the disorder in terms of tissue involvement at the macroscopic and microscopic levels.
This study demonstrates for the first time that DSLD, a disease process previously thought to be limited to the suspensory ligaments of the distal limbs of affected horses, is in fact a systemic disorder involving tissues and organs with significant connective tissue component. Abnormal accumulation of proteoglycans between collagen and elastic fibers rather than specific collagen fibril abnormalities is the most prominent histological feature of DSLD. Because of this observation and because of the involvement of many other tendons and ligaments beside the suspensory ligament, and of non-ligamentous tissue we, therefore, propose that equine systemic proteoglycan accumulation or ESPA rather than DSLD is a more appropriate name for this condition.
One more thing you can do if you suspect your horse may have this problem
http://dsldequine.info/
NEW PROCEEDURE~ You may also want to do a nuchal ligament biopsy which can be done on a live horse so DSLD/ESPA can be checked for internally for proteoglycan accumulation by Dr Halper. This is a new proceedure being offered for those that want a diagnosis in place of or in addition to ultrasounds using Dr Mero's Diagnostic Protocol. A nuchal biopsy MAY show symptoms before they show up in ultrasounds. Several horses have been tested by biopsy, some have had no outward symptoms, but confirmed DSLD internally. This is still being documented, so the more cases using the biopsy the more documentation will be available to research for use as a possible early detection proceedure. For details, Click Here (http://www.angelfire.com/bc/curlygait/biopsy.html)
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Tissue Diagnosis of DSLD
Dr. Jaroslava Halper
Department of Pathology
College of Veterinary Medicine
The University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-7388
Phone: 1-706-542-5830
Fax: 1-706-542-5828
e-mail:
[email protected]
By the way, this is expensive and invasive but at least it doesn't require euthanizing the horse first.
One more research project going on
Iron Testing Form and Instructions
IRON Submission Form-click here (http://www.angelfire.com/bc/curlygait/IRON_1_SUBMISSION_FORM.mht)
A study is being conducted by Dr Kellon on high iron/TIBC/ferritin in DSLD/ESPA horses. So far the findings are showing a majority are high iron some are overloaded. If you have a DSLD/ESPA horse or a symptomatic DSLD/ESPA horse of any breed, please check for Iron levels and help with the study. It is yet to be determined how high iron affects DSLD/ESPA, study is still underway. Thank you.
Use Iron 1 Submission Form to go with your sample. Price for the screen that includes iron, TIBC and ferritin will be $30.00 Please note that:
1. ONLY serum can be used
2. Special handling instructions, including spinning the blood within 2 hours, are on the submission form
3. Samples should be frozen before shipment, shipped by overnight delivery with an ice pack and do not ship after Thursday (preferably no later than Wednesday)
4. Hemolyzed samples can NOT be used
Use the full address:
Comparative Hematology
Sue Chavey, Dept. DM/P
Kansas State Vet. Med. Center, Mosier Hall
1800 Denison Avenue
Manhattan, KS 66506-5605
on the shipping label to make sure it gets to the right place.
If you are going to test, be sure to let me know you are sending a sample. I need to provide the lab with a master list of all samples to be included for the discount. Thank you for taking part in this research.
Dr. Eleanor Kellon
And if you want to help research this terrible disease University of GA has an ongoing research project that is accepting donations for research on pathogenesis of degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis