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. 1974 Sep 1;15(3):325–339. doi: 10.1186/BF03547462

Acute Rhabdomyolysis (“Tying-Up”) in Standardbred Horses

A Morphological and Biochemical Study

Arne Lindholm 1,✉, Hans-Erik Johansson 1, Per Kjærsgaard 1
PMCID: PMC8407238  PMID: 4411856

Abstract

LINDHOLM, A., H.-E. JOHANSSON & P. KJÆRSGAARD: Acute rhabdomyolysis (“tying-up”) in standardbred horses. A morphological and biochemical study. Acta vet. scand. 1974, 15, 325–339. — Morphological, biochemical and histochemical changes were studied in muscle needle biopsy specimens (gluteus medius) from 59 standardbred trotters with acute clinical symptoms of the “tying-up” disease. All horses had increased levels of serum enzymes SGOT and SCPK. The biopsy specimens were taken at various intervals after onset of clinical symptoms (1–4 hrs., 18–24 hrs. and 2–20 days). Ry light microscopy it was shown that the muscular alterations had a focal distribution and were of the hyalin degeneration type with insignificant inflammatory reaction and slight calcification. The ultrastructural changes apparently commenced with myofibrillar waving, mitochondrial and sarcotubular alterations and terminated with myofibrillar degeneration and necrosis with invasion of inflammatory cells. The inflammatory cells were ultrastructurally similar to monocytes and macrophages. The degenerative changes mainly comprised fast twitch (FT and FTH) fibres as histochemically evidenced by myofibrillar ATPase and alkaline phosphatase staining.

Riopsies from diseased muscle 1–4 hrs. after the onset of “tyingup” contained a low muscle concentration of glycogen, ATP and CP and a high concentration of lactate and glucose. Hence it is suggested that the described muscular alterations may be caused by a deranged carbohydrate metabolism caused by a local hypoxia.

It was found that the “tying-up” disease resembled idiopathic rhabdomyolysis in man and was thus designated “equine rhabdomyolysis”.

histochemistry; horse; rhabdomyolysis; skeletal muscle; “tying-up”; ultrastructure.

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Footnotes

This study was supported by a grant from the Wallenberg Foundation.

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