Plasma iron concentrations and systemic inflammatory response syndrome in neonatal foals

BACKGROUND: Sparse information regarding plasma iron concentration in neonatal foals and its utility as an inflammatory marker in this population has been published. OBJECTIVES: To determine the physiologic plasma iron concentration in neonatal foals. To assess its utility as an inflammatory marker to predict systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and as a prognostic marker. ANIMALS: Forty‐seven ill neonatal foals admitted to a referral equine hospital were divided in 2 groups based on the SIRS criteria (24 SIRS and 23 non‐SIRS). Two control groups of 43 hospital and 135 stud farm healthy neonatal foals were also included. METHODS: Observational prospective study. Data were summarized by mean and its 95% confidence interval and absolute frequency and percentage for quantitative andqualitative variables. One‐way ANOVA, ANCOVA (group and age effects) and Dunnett as posthoc analysis were used to compare plasma iron concentration among groups. RESULTS: Neonatal foals with SIRS did not have had any statistically significant different plasma iron concentrations compared to non‐SIRS (P = .56) and stud farm control group (P = .99), 172.8 μg/dL (95% CI; 126.0‐219.6), 193.1 μg/dL (139.1‐247.2), and 181.8 μg/dL (171.3‐192.4), respectively. Plasma iron concentration had a large variability in healthy neonatal foals, and was negatively correlated with age in hospital controls (rho = −0.387) and sick neonatal foals (rho = −0.598) (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Plasma iron was not a useful marker of SIRS in neonatal foals and was not associated with outcome.