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Case Reports
. 2020 Aug 21;10(9):1469.
doi: 10.3390/ani10091469.

Oral Supplementation with Ultramicronized Palmitoylethanolamide for Joint Disease and Lameness Management in Four Jumping Horses: A Case Report

Enrico Gugliandolo  1 , Alfio Barbagallo  2 , Alessio Filippo Peritore  1 , Salvatore Cuzzocrea  1   3 , Rosalia Crupi  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

Oral Supplementation with Ultramicronized Palmitoylethanolamide for Joint Disease and Lameness Management in Four Jumping Horses: A Case Report

Enrico Gugliandolo et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: Four show jumping horses were evaluated for non-responsive lameness, which caused their withdrawal from show jumping competitions. The clinical evaluation was performed by radiographic examination, flexion tests, diagnostic anesthesia and lameness evaluation using the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) scale. The diagnoses were a case of navicular syndrome, a complicated case of chronic navicular syndrome and arthrosis of the distal interphalangeal joint of the right anterior limb and two cases of distal intertarsal joint arthritis. Nutraceuticals are often an important management strategy or coadjutant of pharmacological therapies in joint disease. Ultramicronized Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA-um) is an endogenous fatty acid amide that is well-known for its anti-inflammatory and analgesic proprieties widely used in human medicine and small animal veterinary medicine. Although it includes a small number of cases, our study describes for the first time the efficacy of the use of PEA-um in horses. The four horses with non-responsive lameness and significant impairment in athletic performance were daily treated with PEA-um into their normal diet. After four months of PEA-um supplementation, all horses showed remissions of lameness that led to their reintroduction into showjumping competitions without disease recurrence. Therefore, despite the small number of cases included in this study, these observations suggest a good prospective for developing a controlled experiment to test PEA in a larger cohort of horses.

Keywords: ALIAmides; hoof pain; lameness; lmitoylethanolamide palmitoylethanolamide; navicular syndrome.

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Conflict of interest statement

Salvatore Cuzzocrea is a coinventor on patent WO2013121449 A8, which deals with methods and compositions for the modulation of amidases capable of hydrolyzing N-acylethanolamines employable in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. This invention is wholly unrelated to the present study. Moreover, Cuzzocrea is also, with Epitech Group, a coinventor on the patents EP 2 821 083, MI2014 A001495, and 102015000067344, which are unrelated to the study. The remaining authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Case 1: A gelding 7-year-old jumping horse. X-ray of left (A) and right (B) forelimb. Panel A shows slight alterations in the silhouette of the navicular bone.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Case 2: X-ray of the right forelimb lateromedial, dorso-palmar, dorsoproximal–plantarodistal oblique, and plantaroproximal-plantarodistal oblique views (A–D) respectively revealed bone remodeling of the distal interphalangeal joint of the affected limb, periarticular osteophytes, and ossification of the collateral cartilage (sidebone), accompanied by alterations in the silhouette of the navicular bone.
Figure 3
Figure 3
X-ray of the right hindlimb lateromedial. Panel (A): Case 3, a 14-year-old Holstein mare jumping horse. Panel (B): Case 4, a 15-year-old NRPS mare.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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