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Study Discourages Hopes Of A Blood Test To Diagnose Equine Gastric Ulcers...For Now

Although gastric ulcers are known to be common in both racehorses and sport horses, confirming their presence in the field is still somewhat burdensome. Gastroscopy remains the gold standard, but it requires horses to be fasted ahead of the test and it's also only able to image part of a horse's GI system. In recent years, veterinarians and researchers have hoped to discover some marker in a horse's blood that could show whether they likely have ulcers or not. One study initially suggested that elevated levels of the enzyme gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) in blood may be associated with ulcers, but more recent work out of France didn't offer encouraging results.A study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Equine Veterinary Science this month sought to quantify the prevalence of gastric ulcers in French military horses and to see whether GGT aligned with the results of gastroscopies. There has been limited study of gastric ulcers in police or military horses, who are often stabled in urban areas with limited turnout -- one of the known risk factors for ulcers. Researchers found that 88 percent of the military horses they studied had gastric ulcers, with 80 percent showing squamous ulcers in the upper part of the stomach, and 42 percent showing ulcers in the glandular part of the stomach. Ulcers were found both in horses known to have symptoms related to ulcers, and those who were asymptomatic, which aligns with previous research on gastric ulcers in presence of ulcers overall is referred to as Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS), while Equine Squamous Gastric Disease (ESGD) refers to ulcers in the upper part of the stomach, and Equine Glandular Gastric Disease (EGGD) refers to ulcers in the lower part of the researchers didn't find any correlation between GGT levels and EGUS generally. They did note that horses with EGGD seemed to have higher average GGT, though the statistical association was weak and it could have been influenced by other factors, such as local inflammation, bacteria, or toxic agents that would have triggered release of higher levels of the enzyme. As is often true in academic research, the study authors suggest more examination is needed to be more definitive about the association before it should be considered reliable. Read the full study here.