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Guillotine versus pull‐through technique for palmar digital neurectomy: A retrospective study on 40 horses
Author(s) -
Oosterlinck M.,
Pille F.,
Lubbers C.,
Haspeslagh M.,
Martens A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
equine veterinary education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.304
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 2042-3292
pISSN - 0957-7734
DOI - 10.1111/eve.13017
Subject(s) - medicine , surgery , neurectomy , lameness , medical record , foot (prosody) , refractory (planetary science) , horse , telephone survey , digital nerve , retrospective cohort study , anesthesia , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , alternative medicine , pathology , marketing , astrobiology , business , biology
Summary Palmar digital neurectomy (PDN) is used in horses for treating chronic foot pain refractory to other treatments and is most often performed using the guillotine technique or the pull‐through technique. This study was performed to compare the outcome of the guillotine technique and the pull‐through technique for PDN. Medical records of horses undergoing PDN (January 2008–February 2017) were reviewed (guillotine technique: n = 25, pull‐through technique: n = 15). Outcome was obtained by telephone questionnaire. There was no significant difference between treatment groups for the return to athletic activity, presence of residual/recurrent lameness, occurrence of post‐operative complications and owner satisfaction. Outcome was similar for both techniques, albeit with highly variable individual responses. Establishing realistic client expectations is very important because only a proportion of horses remain sound following PDN as time progresses. Adequate case selection is warranted with either technique and should involve accurate localisation of pain with diagnostic anaesthesia and definitive diagnostic imaging techniques.