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  Discussion on Research: Does Prednisolone Treatment Cause Laminitis?
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DrO

Posted on Monday, Jan 4, 2016 - 5:09 pm:

No surprise here though we do know long term treatment will probably result in some amount of insulin resistance causing some increase susceptibility to founder.
DrO

Equine Vet J. 2015 Dec 29.
Does oral prednisolone treatment increase the incidence of acute laminitis?
Jordan V1, Ireland JL2, Rendle DI3.

Author information:
1Bendigo Equine Hospital, 38 Heinz Street, White Hills, Victoria, 3550, Australia.
2The Animal Health Trust, Lanwades Park, Kentford, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 7UU, UK.
3Rainbow Equine Hospital, Rainbow Farm, Old Malton, Malton, North Yorkshire, YO17 6SG, UK.

Abstract
REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY:
It is accepted amongst equine practitioners that glucocorticoid treatment is a risk factor for the development of laminitis. However, there is little published evidence of a link between glucocorticoids and laminitis.

OBJECTIVES:
To determine whether horses receiving oral prednisolone are at increased risk of laminitis.

STUDY DESIGN:
Retrospective case-control study.

METHODS:
Clinical records of horses registered with the ambulatory service at Liphook Equine Hospital between January 2001 and November 2014 were reviewed retrospectively to identify horses that had received treatment with oral prednisolone. For each treated horse, 2 time-matched controls that received veterinary attention but were not treated with prednisolone were selected. Incidence of laminitis was compared between the two groups and factors associated with laminitis were assessed using Cox regression analysis.

RESULTS:
Of the 416 horses treated with prednisolone, 16 (3.9%) were diagnosed with laminitis subsequent to the initiation of prednisolone treatment; with an overall incidence of 2.60 (95% CI 1.49 - 4.22) cases per 100 horse-years at risk. Seven horses (1.7%) developed laminitis during the course of their treatment. Three (0.7%) of the horses treated with prednisolone were ultimately euthanased as a result of laminitis. Forty-six (5.7%), of the 814 time-matched control horses were diagnosed with laminitis during the study period with an overall incidence of 3.46 (95% CI 2.54 - 4.62) cases per 100 horse-years at risk. Twelve of these (1.5%) were euthanased as a result of laminitis. There were no significant differences in the overall laminitis incidence rate (p = 0.8), incidence rate during prednisolone treatment (p = 0.09) or probability of laminitis (p = 0.3) between the two groups. Mean survival time was greater in the prednisolone group than the control group. Equine metabolic synDrOme and increasing age were associated with increased risk of laminitis.

CONCLUSIONS:
Administration of oral prednisolone did not increase the risk of laminitis.
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