Estudo artrográfico sobre a comunicação entre as articulações társicas em cavalos da raça crioula

Abstract

The disorders of the locomotor system in Crioulo horses are one of the most evident problems due to the adaptations they have been submitted, mainly related to feeding, management and physical training of these animals. Among these disorders, there is the distal tarsal osteoarthritis, which can cause loss of performance and even early withdrawal of athletic activity. Therefore, the objective of this study was to verify the existence of communication between the tarsal joints in Crioulo horses and to evaluate the efficiency of access to distal intertarsal joint in order to facilitate diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. 50 Crioulo horses were used, of both sexes, 3-8 years old, of which 30 tarsus were excluded from the experiment because they had radiographic changes in the region. In all the others, an infiltration of contrast in the distal intertarsal joint and a radiograph were carried out to find possible communication between the tarsal joints. It was found there was no passage of contrast in 42.9% of the tarsus. In 54.3% it was observed that the contrast has spread to the tarsometatarsal joint and 11.5% to proximal tarsal joints. We conclude with this study that tarsal arthrography technique to access the distal intertarsal joint proved to be efficient, but with contrast extravasation into the bag of cunean tendon in a significant number of shanks and that there is a significant percentage of communication between the proximal and distal tarsal joints in the Crioulo horses, highlighting the importance of arthrography before diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.