Caprine serum fraction immunomodulator as supplemental treatment of lower respiratory disease in the horse

Summary Suppurative lower airway disease is a common debilitating disease in performance horses and, while rarely fatal, is often recalcitrant to conventional therapy. A variety of treatments have been used to combat this condition and we conducted two types of studies to determine if caprine serum fraction - immunomodulator (CSFI), a nonspecific immunomodulator, improved recovery from lower respiratory disease. Two dose response studies were performed to ascertain the efficacy of CSFI. Horses were maintained daily on conventional antibiotic therapy. Respiratory tract exudate, nasal discharge, dyspnoea, chest auscultation and cough frequency were monitored weekly. One hundred percent of the horses treated with 2 i.m. injections of either 60 or 120 mg CSFI one week apart showed significant improvement with each weekly evaluation and were fully recovered by week 3. Horses treated with 15 or 30 mg CSFI did not differ significantly from the control group. Only 10% of the control horses responded to conventional antibiotic therapy. An expanded field trial utilising 80 horses diagnosed with lower respiratory disease and housed at 4 equine clinics was conducted. Thirty-five percent of the 40 control horses, treated solely by conventional antibiotic therapies, recovered while 75% of the horses treated with a supplemental administration of 60 mg CSFI as described above recovered. The combined data from these studies showed that CSFI was able to promote an overall recovery from lower respiratory disease of 86%.