2001 S. Lincoln Ave. The horse arrives at the clinic and its heart rate, respiration rate, and digital pulse are checked. Fourth-year veterinary students on the equine rotation send a blood sample to pathology. Dr. Ruth-Anne Richter, the equine resident on call, makes the preliminary diagnosis of a lipoma with a strangulated intestine. Surgery is necessary, so the student colic team on-call, a group of volunteer first, second and third year students is notified.
Lipomas are fatty tumors common in older horses.
The masses hang from a fibrous stalk in the mesentery and can twist gut into an impassable strangulation. Circulation to the strangled gut gets cut off and the gut dies. Lipomas are one of many causes of colic, a word to describe any abdominal pain in a horse, but is the definitive diagnosis in horses older than 10 years. The horse is still in the stocks, with its head down. Fluids are already being administered.