Injecting a horse’s joint is a routine veterinary procedure; corticosteroids or polysulphated glycosaminoglycans (PSGAGs) can be placed directly into a joint for a variety of reasons, including to localize lameness or treat a painful joint. Often antibiotics are administered at the same time in an effort to reduce the risk of infection.
Though this is a common practice, it’s unclear if antibiotics cause damage to the joint tissues. Drs. Lynn Pezzanite, Lyndah Chow, Gabriella Piquini, Gregg Griffenhagen, Dominique Ramirez, Steven Dow and Laurie Goodrich created a study to investigate the effects of 15 different antibiotics on cartilage cells and synoviocytes. The team wanted to determine the concentration of antibiotic needed for 50 percent of the cells to be viable. From there the scientists could assess which antibiotics were safest to use with equine joint injections.
The team incubated the cells with the antibiotic preparations and then stained them to identify dead cells. They discovered that antibiotics reduced the viability of both equine cartilage cells and synovial cells in a dose-dependent manner, which varied between classes of antibiotics.
Doxycycline and aminoglycosides were the most toxic, meaning they required the lowest concentration of antibiotics to kill 50 percent of the cells. Ampicillin sulbactam, amoxicillin, tobramycin, imipenem and ceftiofur sodium were the least harmful to the joint.
The scientists determined that some antibiotics can be harmful to equine chondrocytes and synovial cells when given concurrently with joint injections. They suggest that further research be done to evaluate their findings in living subjects.
Read more at Equine Science Update.
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