#22- From "difficult horse" to ECVM diagnosis w/Dr Kate Workman

Dr. Kate Workman (Denali Equine, Rexos) returns to break down ECVM, the lower-neck malformation increasingly linked to behavior, performance, and pain issues in horses. We cover her newly published, open-access paper (with Dr. Sharon May-Davis and Dr. Audrey DeClue), the grading system, how to diagnose it correctly, how to manage a horse presenting symptoms of ECVM. In this episode: what ECVM is and the clinical signsthe grade 1–4 scale, unilateral vs. Bilateraleffects on the longus coli, brachial plexus, and vertebral arterysurgical riskdiagnosing it right (and the most common x-ray mistake)genetics and breeding About Dr. Kate Workman: Dr. Kate Workman is aveterinarian at Denali Equine and co-founder of Rexos, a nonprofit dedicated to cataloging axial skeleton conditions in horses through necropsy-based research. Her team has performed detailed post-mortem studies on horses euthanized for unresolved behavioral, performance, and pain issues, work that led to her most recent paper on ECVM. Denali Equinehttps://denaliequine.com/ The paper:Identifying by Radiograph Grade 4 Aplasia of the Caudal Lamina Ventralis in the Equine Sixth Cervical Vertebra and Three Coinciding Morphological Variationshttps://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/16/3/482