Labordiagnostik - Veterinärmedizinische Fakultät der Universität ...

Clinical evaluation of serum Alcohol Dehydrogenase activity in
horses with acute intestinal obstruction
Naglaa Gomaa, Gábor Köller, and G.F Schusser
Department of Large Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine,
University of Leipzig
Introduction: Intestinal obstruction is an abdominal emergency in horses. Survival
and outcome of these cases is very important especially for the owners due to the
high costs of surgery and intensive care. Several biochemical parameters were used
as prognostic indicators of intestinal ischemia but they lack specificity and sensitivity.
Although the liver seems to be the first organ after intestine that affected by intestinal
ischemia as the hepatic vasculature is in series with intestinal circulation, the lack of
an early discriminating hepatic function test delays recognition of hepatic failure. Serum
ADH is a cytosolic hepatic enzyme, abundant in centrilobular region of the liver
acinus and considered a more sensitive biochemical marker of hepatic hypoxia due
to vascular disturbance in the liver. In this study, we aimed to evaluate ADH activity in
horses with acute intestinal obstruction and to determine whether the level of serum
ADH activity in these horses has a diagnostic and prognostic value.
Material and method: 30 clinically healthy horses were used as a control group for
measuring serum ADH activity in normal adult horses. A prospective study included
only 64 horses with acute intestinal obstruction was carried out. The diagnoses was
done by rectal examination and confirmed after surgical or pathological findings. The
horses were divided into 3 groups: G1 (non-strangulation obstruction) included 23
horses with impaction of left ventral colon and left colon displacement, G2 (small intestinal
strangulation) included 22 horses with inguinal hernia, lipoma pendulus, volvulus
and intestinal incarceration and G3 (colonic torsion) included 19 horses with
partial and total colon torsion. Spectrophotometric assay of serum ADH activity in
healthy horses and all groups of horses with colic was carried out using Beckman
Coulter Spectrophotometer. In addition, serum lactate concentration, Aspartataminotransferase
(AST), Gammaglutamyltransferase (GGT), Glutamatdehydrogenase (GLDH)
activities were measured using an automatic analyzer (Hitachi 912, Boehringer
Mannheim). The data was statistically analyzed using SPSS 15 software programme.
Diagnostic or prognostic cut-off values of ADH activity for distinguishing intestinal
strangulation from non strangulation obstruction or predicting the outcome of horses