Use of metronidazole in equine acute idiopathic toxaemic colitis

摘要: Sixteen cases of acute idiopathic toxaemic colitis developed in a veterinary hospital over period three years. Before the onset colitis, 15 horses had received antibiotics, 11 undergone general anaesthesia and various surgical procedures, 10 been treated with non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs. The onset, profuse watery diarrhoea, profound depression, mild to moderate abdominal pain, reduced intestinal borborygmi, tachycardia, dehydration endotoxic shock. Leucopenia, neutropenia pyrexia were common early indicators impending colitis. Metronidazole appeared be an effective treatment; eight metronidazole survived whereas five seven thaf other treatments, but no metronidazole, died or euthanased. aetiology could not determined, clinicopathological features resembled those attributed overgrowth Clostridium perfringens type A. No Salmonella species isolated from 52 samples faeces, colonic contents mucosa which collected antemortem postmortem.