Texas A&M Clinical Trial Transforming Care For Equine Sepsis Patients
Story by Sophie Cela, VMBS Marketing & Communications
Sepsis, a severe reaction to a bacterial infection, is among the most common and life-threatening conditions in horses. Foals are especially vulnerable because their immune systems are still developing; they can be exposed to bacteria either through their mother before birth or from the environment shortly after being born.
When a foal or adult horse is septic, its body’s immune system releases inflammatory signals called cytokines to help regulate the immune response. However, this unregulated release often causes a dangerous overproduction in cytokines, called a cytokine storm, that overwhelms the immune system and leaves it unable to fight off the very infection it was trying to stop — often resulting in death of the horse.
That’s why Dr. Kallie Hobbs, an assistant professor of equine and food animal internal medicine at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, is exploring hemoperfusion, a method of cleaning the blood to help restore the body’s natural ability to fight off infection.
“This process involves a catheter that draws blood from the horse, which then passes through a hemoperfusion column filled with adsorbent material,” Hobbs said. “After being filtered, the blood is returned to the animal without excess inflammatory signals.”
This technology — originally developed to treat severe COVID-19 cases in humans — is still new in the veterinary world, and now, Texas A&M is one of the only programs in the country offering this treatment for large animals.
“This is considered part of standard care in humans,” Hobbs said. “And now it’s starting to become part of cutting-edge care in veterinary medicine, too.”
As part of the Texas A&M Large Animal Teaching Hospital’s clinical trial, the hemoperfusion treatment itself is currently free, thanks to industry support and research funding. Owners are only responsible for the horse’s hospital stay, diagnostics, and supportive care.
“In return, we’re able to document those animals in case reports and track their progress,” Hobbs said. “For some owners, it might be the only chance to save a horse that’s not responding to anything else. I’ve filtered blood in several horses with sepsis and have noted a rapid improvement in their clinical signs.”
While sepsis is the trial’s central focus, Hobbs and her team have started applying hemoperfusion to other emergencies, like toxicity cases involving rat bait ingestion or snake envenomation — instances where dangerous substances can be physically removed from the bloodstream.
Behind the scenes, the success of the trial is powered by cross-hospital collaboration. Hobbs has partnered with Drs. Igor Yankin and Lance Wheeler, at Texas A&M’s Small Animal Teaching Hospital, where hemoperfusion has recently become a new treatment option for dogs in the Emergency and Critical Care Services.
“If people see that we saved a dog’s life with this, they’re more willing to try it for their horse,” Hobbs said. “It helps validate the whole process.”
Looking ahead, Hobbs hopes to develop protocols to better refine treatment of sepsis and determine which types of infections respond best to hemoperfusion.
“My hope is that hemoperfusion becomes a management strategy we can use early, instead of waiting until everything else has failed,” she said.
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Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu, 979-862-4216
