Nutritional and clinicopathological effects of post operative parenteral nutrition following small intestinal resection and anastomosis in the mature horse

Reasons for performing study: There is an absence of data describing the nutritional requirements and nutritional status of horses following surgery for colic; furthermore, the potential effect of parenteral nutrition (PN) on improving nutritional status in such cases is unknown. Hypothesis: Post operative colic cases suffer from a potentially detrimental negative energy balance and the PN formulation developed in this study would lead to clinicopathologically detectable improvements in the subjects' nutritional status. Methods: Several clinicopathological variables, some known to be associated with nutritional status, were compared in 2 groups of horses in the post operative period following colic surgery; Group N (n = 15) were treated with PN and Group C (n = 15) were starved routinely. Results: Group N had significantly lower serum concentrations of triglycerides, total bilirubin, albumin and urea and significantly higher serum concentrations of glucose and insulin compared with Group C in the post operative period. Conclusions: The control group of horses demonstrated significant clinicopathological evidence of starvation and the described PN protocol resulted in a demonstrably improved nutritional status in the treated horses. Potential relevance: Further study is required to investigate clinical benefits and possible harmful side effects of post operative parenteral nutrition before the technique can be advocated for widespread use in practice.