Working together with various partners and collaborators, and with ethical approval, we are embarking on an ambitious programme of work to help elucidate the cause or causes of tying up (or recurrent exertional rhabdomyolysis (RER)) in different horse breeds. Generally, this is a disease that is recognised clinically and then confirmed with muscle biopsy. We are especially interested in tying up / recurrent exertional rhabdomyolysis in Thoroughbred, Warmblood and Connemara horses / ponies – breeds in which this disease is common.
If you are a horse owner or vet with a patient within these breed categories that you suspect has RER and for which you or your vet are considering submitting a diagnostic muscle biopsy sample to the Royal Veterinary College’s Comparative Neuromuscular Laboratory, please be aware that we are offering a competitive discounted total fee based on the owner bringing their horse to the RVC’s equine hospital for the biopsy procedure.
The total fee (admission, consult, biopsy plus histology report) will be £425. This represents a substantial saving in comparison with what would be normally charged.
Unless other investigations are required, generally this can be conducted as an outpatient procedure and the surgery itself will be conducted by our surgery service using a routine, standard open diagnostic biopsy of the semimembranosus muscle in identical fashion to that recommended for vets in practice. By processing the sample immediately following collection we maximise diagnostic quality.
If you are interested in using this service, will vets please email the Neuromuscular Laboratory (neuromuscular@rvc.ac.uk) with a brief history and signalment of the horse. We will confirm whether the horse is suitable for this discounted rate and if so, put you in touch with the Equine Referral Hospital to facilitate the referral.
Hopefully you get the same excellent service but you can contribute to our work, trying to find the cause of this enigmatic disorder.