The

Veterinary Journal
The Veterinary Journal 169 (2005) 311313
www.elsevier.com/locate/tvjl

Short communication

Endoscopic determination of exercise-induced

pulmonary haemorrhage in Chilean Criollo horses
O. Araya
a

a,*

, P. Palma a, M. Salvi b, H. Bustamante a, L. Vits

Institute of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile
b
Animal Clinic, Universidad Nacional de R
o Cuarto, R
o Cuarto, C
ordoba, Argentina
Accepted 10 February 2004

Keywords: EIPH; Chilean Criollo horse; Respiratory endoscopy

Exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH) is

a condition frequently experienced by horses during
maximal exercise characterised by bleeding of the pulmonary vasculature (Erickson, 1994). Other authors
dene EIPH as the presence of blood in the tracheobronchial tree arising from the alveolar capillaries
(Sweeney, 1991). Cook (1974) proposed that this blood
originated in the lung. However, his hypothesis was not
proved until the respiratory tracts were assessed using
breoptic endoscopy and EIPH was characterised by the
post-exercise presence of blood of pulmonary-origin
localised in the tracheo-bronchial airways.
It is probable that all racing horses present some
grade of pulmonary haemorrhage during intensive exercise, but only 1% present as epistaxis, 50% are positive
on endoscopic examination and 100% positive on
bronchio-alveolar lavage. The pathology is not restricted to breeds such as the Thoroughbred or Standardbred, as it has been reported in other breeds that
perform exercise of similar intensity, such as polo and
event horses (Sweeney, 1991). A chronic EIPH prevalence of 87% for Standardbred horses and 95% for
Thoroughbreds has been demonstrated (Pascoe, 1991).
EIPH is a disorder of high morbidity and low mortality, aecting horses which undergo intense exercise. It
also aects other species such as camels (Akbar et al.,
1994) and racing greyhounds (King et al., 1990). The
condition is of unknown aetiology, and although dif*

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +56-63-221354.

E-mail address: oaraya@uach.cl (O. Araya).

1090-0233/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2004.02.002

ferent theories have been proposed regarding pathogenesis, the prevailing opinion is that high vascular
pressures may induce stress-related failure of the pulmonary capillaries, producing haemorrhage and oedema
in the gas-exchange region of the lungs (West et al.,
1991, 1993; Birks et al., 1997; Erickson et al., 1997).
Intrapulmonary blood induces a macrophage dominated inammatory response, septal thickening and the
development of alveolar brosis (McKane and Slocombe, 2002). These changes are the probable cause of
the alveolar brosis and bronchiolitis that was once
suspected to be the originating cause of EIPH.
The diagnosis of EIPH is based on clinical signs and
necropsy, but the most common method at the present
time is endoscopy of the upper airway alone or combined with a tracheal wash (Birks et al., 2003) or
broncho-alveolar lavage cytology.
The Chilean Criollo horse is virtually unknown outside of Meridional South America, even though the
Criollo is the oldest registered horse breed in the Americas. The horses are used for cattle work by Chilean
cowboys (huasos) and also for rodeo, an authentically
traditional sport in Chile. Two pure Chilean mounted
horse riders work in a pair to stop a steer in three consecutive attempts by pushing the animal into soft barriers
on opposite sides of the ring (half moon) at the gallop.
This is repeated four times during a competition. It
would be expected that these horses would suer from
EIPH during a rodeo competition in a similar way to that
described in other breeds of sport horses. It was therefore
decided to determine the presence of post-exercise