Champion Australian Racehorse Dies of Colitis
.jpg)
James Matthew, a champion Standardbred pacer from Australia, died this morning (Feb 25) of colitis. He originally had a suspected viral infection, then developed colitis (severe diarrhea). Despite aggressive care in a veterinary hospital, he died. The causes was reported as "colitis X".
Colitis X is a term that I don't like, and one that I (and many other people) have stopped using. For me, it's a fancy way of saying "it's severe diarrhea and I don't know what caused it.'" Clinically, colitis X is characterized by severe diarrhea and varying degrees of dehydration, toxemia, abdominal pain and shock. Affected animals often die very quickly despite extremely intensive treatment.
Colitis X is not a specific disease. It is probably caused by one (or a combination) of many intestinal pathogens such as Salmonella, Clostridium difficile, Clostridium perfringens and likely many other bacteria. It is often associated with antibiotic therapy, and I wonder whether this horse was treated with antibiotics. (I'm not saying it's the case here, but unfortunately, many horses with viral infections are treated with antibiotics unnecessarily.)
Treatment of severe colitis can be very difficult. These horses are very sick and tend to respond very poorly to any treatment. We can use extremely aggressive fluid therapy, running in as much fluid as is physically possible, and still not keep up with the amount of fluid they lose. They often shown signs of severe shock, they lose tremendous amounts of protein through their intestinal tract, and can develop severe complications like laminitis (founder).
Prevention of severe colitis is also difficult. Antibiotic treatment is certainly a risk factor and we should try to limit antibiotic use to only when absolutely necessary. However, some horses develop severe colitis for no apparent reason, and there's not much we can do about it in those cases.
More information on Clostridium difficile can be found on the equIDblog Resources page.
