Do Navicular Bone Chips Cause Lameness?

Bone fragments are seen in lame and non-lame horses, it is difficult to determine if they’re clinically significant.
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the foot is a valuable tool in diagnosing equine lameness and can clearly identify fragments or chips originating from the distal border of the navicular bone … but researchers say, "so what?"

"These fragments are seen in both lame and non-lame horses, which makes it difficult to determine if the fragments really are important or not," explained Sue Dyson, MA, VetMB, PhD, DEO, FRCVS, head of clinical orthopaedics at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England, renowned for her research using MRI in lameness diagnosis.

To better determine the importance of these fragments, Dyson and her research team reviewed the MRI scans of 427 horses with forelimb lamenesses localized to the foot.

"Fragments were noted in 111 (30%) of the horses," said Dyson

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Written by:

Stacey Oke, MSc, DVM, is a practicing veterinarian and freelance medical writer and editor. She is interested in both large and small animals, as well as complementary and alternative medicine. Since 2005, she’s worked as a research consultant for nutritional supplement companies, assisted physicians and veterinarians in publishing research articles and textbooks, and written for a number of educational magazines and websites.

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