2025/08/08 by IG Entwisle, DP Byrne, David Byrne +4
Veterinary · #Animal health and immunology #Veterinary Equine Medical Research #Veterinary medicine and infectious diseases
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/avj.70007
crossref issued 2025/08/08 · crossref published 2025/08/08 · crossref published-online 2025/08/08 · openalex publication_date 2025/08/08 · crossref created 2025/08/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref published-print 2025/12/01 · crossref deposited 2025/12/04 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Background Sand enteropathy is a common disease in horses worldwide. The presence of sand does not always cause disease. The amount of sand required to cause clinical disease is not well established. Objectives To establish a weight‐indexed cut‐off for the diagnosis of clinically relevant sand enteropathy based on radiographic area. Study design Cross‐sectional. Methods Abdominal radiographs were acquired from clinically normal horses and compared with horses with clinical sand enteropathy. Sand area and sand area per kilogram of body weight were calculated. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to differentiate groups. Results Seventy clinically normal horses and 57 sand enteropathy cases were included. Median sand area in control horses was 1 cm 2 per 100 kg (interquartile range 0–6 cm 2 per 100 kg), and in sand enteropathy horses was 118 cm 2 per 100 kg (interquartile range 83–180 cm 2 per 100 kg). Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that using a cut‐off of 21 cm 2 per 100 kg had a sensitivity of 98.25% (CI 90.71%–99.1%) and a specificity of 92.54% (CI 83.69%–96.77%) for a diagnosis of clinical sand enteropathy. Conclusions A weight‐based cut‐off of >21 cm 2 per 100 kg for the diagnosis of sand enteropathy was determined with excellent sensitivity and good specificity. This may aid in determining if the amount of sand accumulation in a horse is of clinical consequence.