Postanesthetic hemorrhagic myelopathy in a horse
Yovich, J.V.; LeCouteur, R.A.; Stashak, T.S.; Grandy, J.L.; Whalen, L.R.
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 188(3): 300-301
1986
ISSN/ISBN: 0003-1488 PMID: 3949606 Document Number: 285076
Acute haemorrhagic myelopathy developed in the sixth cervical to the eighth thoracic spinal cord segments of a 1-year-old colt that was castrated under general anaesthesia while in dorsal recumbency. Clinical signs were consistent with severe transverse myelopathy caudal to the brachial enlargement and cranial to the lumbosacral enlargement of the spinal cord. Histological examination of the spinal cord revealed haemorrhage in the grey matter, with multiple blood-filled clefts in the otherwise normal neuropil. Haemodynamic changes in the spinal cord associated with anaesthesia and dorsal recumbency might have led to hypoxic vessel damage, with massive haemorrhage after surgery, when the horse was returned to lateral recumbency. Postanaesthetic haemorrhagic myelopathy is a possible complication of positioning in dorsal recumbency, during anaesthesia, in rapidly growing, young horses.