Sagittal navicular fracture - any experiences?

[loric]

We're working on finding a surgeon with experience and a fair success rate in working with this type of injury. I need to make some calls on Monday... Our vet is a good lameness vet but he has not done the procedure. At this point I've been getting info secondhand so there are some holes in what I know.

He recommended UIUC (who I need to call) and another vet in Oklahoma who ?cuts the suspensory? For healing. I googled and found this lag screw method written up by some UK vets that looked encouraging.

Horse is a 12 year old barrel horse. Injury happened exactly one week ago. He currently has a 12 degree wedge which is the start of the non surgical method, which has offhand I think a 15 percent success rate, but it makes him comfortable while we investigate options.

We are in central Il.Have had some HORRIBLE U of I experiences when regular vets were unavailable, such that we had to get the work redone when our vet returned to town. But we will definitely be considering based on which vet is recommended. Any other vet suggestions in the midwest or your experiences with this kind of unusual injury would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Tom Stovall]

loric in gray

We're working on finding a surgeon with experience and a fair success rate in working with this type of injury. I need to make some calls on Monday... Our vet is a good lameness vet but he has not done the procedure. At this point I've been getting info secondhand so there are some holes in what I know.

He recommended UIUC (who I need to call) and another vet in Oklahoma who ?cuts the suspensory? For healing. I googled and found this lag screw method written up by some UK vets that looked encouraging.

Horse is a 12 year old barrel horse. Injury happened exactly one week ago. He currently has a 12 degree wedge which is the start of the non surgical method, which has offhand I think a 15 percent success rate, but it makes him comfortable while we investigate options.

We are in central Il.Have had some HORRIBLE U of I experiences when regular vets were unavailable, such that we had to get the work redone when our vet returned to town. But we will definitely be considering based on which vet is recommended. Any other vet suggestions in the midwest or your

Please see Dr. Tracy Turner's paper on navicular fractures:

http://www.equipodiatry.com/11903.html

If memory serves, Dr. Turner has a clinic at Elk River, MN.

[Fharoah]

There was one secess story using stem cell to heal navicular fracture.

[Patty Stiller]

I've treated only one navicular fracture in all my years shoeing . It was not saggital but it was articular. (see picture) The treatment was successful without surgery .
The treatment involved standing the foot up about 15 degrees to remove most of the pulling pull on the impar and suspensory ligaments of the navicular bone and using a hospital type plate to prevent any pressure on the frog area, under the bone. Stall rest for several months, followed by hand walking gradually lowering the hoof angle every reset, and finally after about 6-7 months light work ,and finally he went back to full work in about 10-12 months.

[Sister7]

How terrible! I will share my experience, though it may be quite different from yours.

About 3 years ago my horse game in from the pasture grade 5 lame. We thought he had a bad abscess. Had the vet out and farrier out. They both felt it was a "very deep" abscess. We continued treading it as an abscess with no success. After a week of this, we had the vet out again. She did nerve block and told me it was time for x-rays.

X-rays revealed that my horse had a large bone chip on his navicular bone very near to where the deep flexor tendon attaches to the navicular bone. My vet hypothesized that he probably either pulled the tendon and it took some of the bone with it, or it was a hard impact fracture from striking a rock (or whatever) when galloping.

Either way, she recommended the same treatment. We shod him in bar shoes with flat hard pads about 1/8"-1/4" thick. He was put on stall rest in a 10x20 box stall for 3 months. We got another set of x-rays, and the chip had completely fused back to the navicular bone, and you could not even tell where it had been.

We started his rehab with another 3 months of hand walking/light riding, and he eventually graduated to turnout in a 40x40 pen. I slowly brought him back to work, and to this date he has never taken an off step.

About 6 months ago (2.5 years after the initial injury) I took him out of the bar shoes and back into normal horse shoes. He was picking up huge rocks under the bar shoes and I was really worried about it.

He was my jumper, and I decided that it wasn't worth the risk to jump him again (though he has cleared his 5' pasture fence once since the injury.....). We have started our dressage career, and he has been completely sound doing moderate flat work.

Here are some links I had saved:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0HeO3I8MGFcC&lpg=PA204&ots=8U3CTSnLLU&dq=navicular%20bone%20chip&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=navicular%20bone%20chip&f=false

http://chestofbooks.com/animals/horses/Diseases-Of-The-Horse-Foot/3-Fractures-Of-The-Navicular-Bone.html

http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/aaep/2001/91010100270.pdf