Schiff‐Sherrington syndrome in a 7‐year‐old zebra mare ( Equus quagga )

Abstract

Traumatic vertebral injuries are typically caused by incidents such as collision with immovable objects or a fall. Although injury to the vertebral column may occur at any site, in adult horses, the caudal neck and caudal thoracic (T15-18) are the most affected regions.In contrast, traumatic vertebral injury of the cranial to mid-thoracic and lumbar (L) spine is rare in equids (Feige et al., 2000;Robertson & Samii, 2012).The degree and type of the neurological abnormalities depend on location, severity of the insult and damage of the spinal cord.Cases may either be asymptomatic without any neurological signs or may exhibit severe tetraparesis or tetraplegia. Injuries to the caudal cervical (C) or thoracic spinal cord more likely lead to lateral recumbency compared with lesions of the cranial cervical or lumbosacral spine (Feige et al., 2000). Lesions of the spinal cord localised between the 2nd thoracic vertebra and the 3rd lumbar vertebra may lead to pelvic limb paralysis with concurrent extensor rigidity of the thoracic limbs. This condition is referred to as Schiff-Sherrington syndrome (Coates & O'Brien, 2004;deLahunta, 1983). To the authors' knowledge only two cases of Schiff-Sherrington syndrome in horses have been reported (Chiapetta et al., 1985;Lhamas et al., 2015).