WNYVMA Hybrid CE Event: Tools for Equine Care - SAA Testing, Vitamin E Myopathies, and Tick-Borne Diseases

Presented by: Holly Helbig, DVM AND Toby Winn-Pincock, DVM, DACVIM

Tools for Equine Care - SAA Testing - Holly Helbig, DVM

Join Dr. Holly Helbig of Zoetis for an in-depth exploration of Serum Amyloid A (SAA) testing and its expanding role in equine medicine. As a highly sensitive biomarker of inflammation, SAA offers veterinarians a powerful tool for diagnosing, monitoring, and managing equine health. In this session, Dr. Helbig will review the science behind SAA, share practical applications in the field, and discuss how this rapid diagnostic can support clinical decision-making—from detecting early signs of infection to guiding treatment and evaluating recovery.

Practical Diagnostics for the Equine Practitioner: Tips for diagnostic selection, interpretation and case examples. During this session Dr. Pinn-Woodcock will review essential types of specimen collection containers and transport media to stock in your truck or clinic, best practices for sample handling and the recommended diagnostic approach to common equine workups, including infectious respiratory, neurologic, and gastrointestinal disease and more. Equine case examples will be used throughout the session to highlight important learning points.

Learning objectives:

1. Attendees will learn the correct use of different types of blood collection tubes and bacterial transport media, and be able to apply this information to clinical cases.
2. Attendees will be reminded of appropriate sample selection and diagnostic test choice for equine infectious respiratory disease, colitis and neurologic disease work-ups, and be able to apply this to future clinical cases.
3. Attendees will become acquainted with online resources available to them when presented with challenging diagnostic cases in the field.

What’s bugging our horses? Updates on Equine Tickborne Diseases: Dr. Pinn-Woodcock will review three tickborne diseases infecting horses, including Anaplasmosis and Lyme Disease which are endemic in the United States, and the foreign animal disease Piroplasmosis. This session will focus on the approach to diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of these diseases, and provide updates from recently published literature.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will learn the clinical signs in horses associated with Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma,
   phagocytophilum, and Piroplasmosis and be able to develop a diagnostic plan for suspect cases.
2. Attendees will learn the diagnostic and treatment challenges associated with Borrelia burgdorferi in horses and will be able to develop a treatment plan for cases of equine Anaplasmosis
3. Attendees will learn about the populations of horses at-risk for Piroplasmosis in the United States and how these cases are diagnosed and managed from a regulatory perspective.

Equine neuromuscular disorders associated with Vitamin E deficiency: Clinical Signs, Diagnosis and Management: During this session Dr. Pinn-Woodcock will cover equine vitamin E nutritional requirements and then discuss 3 disorders associated with vitamin E deficiency, including Equine Motor Neuron Disease (EMND), Equine Degenerative Myeloencephalopathy (EDM) and Equine Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (eNAD), and Vitamin E-Responsive Myopathy (VEM). Clinical signs, diagnostic strategy and management of each disorder will be reviewed, along with recently published supporting literature.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will learn how to develop a maintenance Vitamin E supplementation plan for backyard and performance horses. 
2. Attendees will learn the risk factors, history and clinical signs that distinguish EDM/NAD, EMND and VEM.
3. Attendees will be able to develop a diagnostic and management plan for these cases based on published supporting literature.