Confronto tra reperti endoscopici, rilievi istologici ed espressione citochinica della mucosa gastrica di cavallo

In recent years, gastric ulceration has been recognised as a common, possibly performance-limiting disease of adult horse. The aim of this study was to compare endoscopic features, histological diagnosis and cytokines’ mRNA (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-13) from gastric biopsies. The sample was represented by 11 horses suffering from equine gastric ulcer syndrome and 7 horses with normal histological gastric features. No correlation between endoscopic features and histology (gold standard) was observed. Based on histological diagnosis, in horses affected by equine ulcerative gastric syndrome a significant (p<0.05) increase in cytokines’ mRNA (TNF-α and IL-13) was observed.