Researchers Study Equine Blood Transfusions

Dr. Rose Nolen-Walston examined if blood can be taken monthly and stored successfully for use in transfusions and more.
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By  Rose Nolen-Walston, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, assistant professor of large animal internal medicine

Rose Nolen-Walston, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, assistant professor of large animal internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s New Bolton Center, recently conducted two separate studies on blood transfusions in horses. One examined whether blood from horses can be taken once a month and stored successfully for use in transfusions, while the other examined the consequences of giving transfusions to horses with blood that was not cross-matched to their blood type. Nolen-Walston collaborated with two New Bolton Center colleagues on the studies.

It’s a scary day when your horse needs a blood transfusion. Maybe he got injured in the field, or bled a lot after castration. Maybe it’s a mare that bled from her uterine artery after foaling, something seen more commonly as they age and have more offspring. Maybe it’s a foal that ingested antibodies that attacked its own red blood cells after drinking the first milk from its dam. Sometimes horses with fungal infections in the guttural pouch (an airsac right behind the jaw) bleed profusely, as do horses undergoing sinus surgery. But whatever it is, red blood cells carrying oxygen to the organs are essential for life. When there aren’t enough of them, the very machinery of the body begins to shut down rapidly. Getting that blood into your horse is essential, and often can be a race against the clock.

Blood transfusions in horses share a lot of similarities with humans, but there are some vital differences. The first has to do with matching blood types, a laboratory test to ensure that the recipient won’t react negatively to the transfused blood. Unlike humans, who have just three main blood types (A, B, and O), horses have seven blood groups: A, C, D, K, P, Q, and U. Furthermore, each group can have multiple cell membrane proteins referred to as factors a, b, c, d, e, f, or g. The blood type refers to both group and factor, so each horse has a blood type such as Qa or Pd. Doing the math, this leads to over 400,000 combinations. So the first major difference between humans and horses is that we veterinarians very rarely can give truly “matched” blood

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