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Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse

BACKGROUND: The Icelandic horse is a pristine breed of horse which has a pure gene pool established more than a thousand years ago, and is approximately the same size as living and extinct wild breeds of horses. This study was performed to compare the length of the skeletal growth period of the &quo...

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Autores principales: Strand, Eric, Braathen, Linn Camilla, Hellsten, Mia C, Huse-Olsen, Lisel, Bjornsdottir, Sigridur
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950711/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17640333
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-49-19
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author Strand, Eric
Braathen, Linn Camilla
Hellsten, Mia C
Huse-Olsen, Lisel
Bjornsdottir, Sigridur
author_facet Strand, Eric
Braathen, Linn Camilla
Hellsten, Mia C
Huse-Olsen, Lisel
Bjornsdottir, Sigridur
author_sort Strand, Eric
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Icelandic horse is a pristine breed of horse which has a pure gene pool established more than a thousand years ago, and is approximately the same size as living and extinct wild breeds of horses. This study was performed to compare the length of the skeletal growth period of the "primitive" Icelandic horse relative to that reported for large horse breeds developed over the recent centuries. This information would provide practical guidance to owners and veterinarians as to when the skeleton is mature enough to commence training, and would be potentially interesting to those scientists investigating the pathogenesis of osteochondrosis. Interestingly, osteochondrosis has not been documented in the Icelandic horse. METHODS: The radiographic closure time of the appendicular growth plates was studied in 64 young Icelandic horses. The results were compared with previously published closure times reported for other, larger horse breeds. The radiographs were also examined for any signs of developmental orthopaedic diseases. In order to describe further the growth pattern of the Icelandic horse, the total serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was determined and the height at the withers was measured. RESULTS: Most of the examined growth plates were fully closed at the age of approximately three years. The horses reached adult height at this age; however ALP activity was still mildly increased over baseline values. The growth plates in the digits were the first to close at 8.1 to 8.5 months of age, and those in the regions of the distal radius (27.4 to 32.0 months), tuber olecrani (31.5 to 32.2 months), and the stifle (27.0 to 40.1 months) were the last to close. No horse was found to have osteochondrosis type lesions in the neighbouring joints of the evaluated growth plates. CONCLUSION: The Icelandic horse appears to have similar radiographic closure times for most of the growth plates of its limbs as reported for large new breeds of horses developed during the past few centuries. It thus appears that different breeding goals and the intensity of breeding have not altered the length of the growth period in horses. Instead, it can be assumed that the pristine and relatively small Icelandic horse has a slower rate of growth. The appendicular skeleton of Icelandic horses has completed its bone growth in length at approximately 3 years of age, and therefore may be able to enter training at this time.
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spelling pubmed-19507112007-08-23 Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse Strand, Eric Braathen, Linn Camilla Hellsten, Mia C Huse-Olsen, Lisel Bjornsdottir, Sigridur Acta Vet Scand Research BACKGROUND: The Icelandic horse is a pristine breed of horse which has a pure gene pool established more than a thousand years ago, and is approximately the same size as living and extinct wild breeds of horses. This study was performed to compare the length of the skeletal growth period of the "primitive" Icelandic horse relative to that reported for large horse breeds developed over the recent centuries. This information would provide practical guidance to owners and veterinarians as to when the skeleton is mature enough to commence training, and would be potentially interesting to those scientists investigating the pathogenesis of osteochondrosis. Interestingly, osteochondrosis has not been documented in the Icelandic horse. METHODS: The radiographic closure time of the appendicular growth plates was studied in 64 young Icelandic horses. The results were compared with previously published closure times reported for other, larger horse breeds. The radiographs were also examined for any signs of developmental orthopaedic diseases. In order to describe further the growth pattern of the Icelandic horse, the total serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was determined and the height at the withers was measured. RESULTS: Most of the examined growth plates were fully closed at the age of approximately three years. The horses reached adult height at this age; however ALP activity was still mildly increased over baseline values. The growth plates in the digits were the first to close at 8.1 to 8.5 months of age, and those in the regions of the distal radius (27.4 to 32.0 months), tuber olecrani (31.5 to 32.2 months), and the stifle (27.0 to 40.1 months) were the last to close. No horse was found to have osteochondrosis type lesions in the neighbouring joints of the evaluated growth plates. CONCLUSION: The Icelandic horse appears to have similar radiographic closure times for most of the growth plates of its limbs as reported for large new breeds of horses developed during the past few centuries. It thus appears that different breeding goals and the intensity of breeding have not altered the length of the growth period in horses. Instead, it can be assumed that the pristine and relatively small Icelandic horse has a slower rate of growth. The appendicular skeleton of Icelandic horses has completed its bone growth in length at approximately 3 years of age, and therefore may be able to enter training at this time. BioMed Central 2007-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC1950711/ /pubmed/17640333 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-49-19 Text en Copyright © 2007 Strand et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Strand, Eric
Braathen, Linn Camilla
Hellsten, Mia C
Huse-Olsen, Lisel
Bjornsdottir, Sigridur
Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title_full Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title_fullStr Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title_full_unstemmed Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title_short Radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the Icelandic horse
title_sort radiographic closure time of appendicular growth plates in the icelandic horse
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950711/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17640333
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-49-19
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