Abstract
Proper diagnosis and management of equine cardiac diseases require a broad experience and a specialization in the field, but acquisition of specific knowledge is difficult, due, among other reasons, to the limited literature in this field. Therefore, we have designed, developed, and implemented (on a computer algebra system) a Decision Support System (DSS) for equine cardiovascular diseases diagnosis and management based on clinical practise. At this step it is appropriate for equine science teaching, but this work paves the way for a clinical decision support system that facilitated equine clinicians the management of horses with cardiac diseases, allowing improving health care in this species. The latter would require extensive testing prior to its use. The novelty of this work relies on the organization of the equine cardiology workflow in mathematical logic form, that allowed designing, develop and implement a DSS in this new field. An innovation of this work is the part of the DSS devoted to data completion (motivated by the possible lack of specialization of the users—the veterinarians).
Highlights
Most horses with cardiac disease have a useful performance life, but they can occasionally develop clinical signs that vary from slightly altered clinical signs to poor performance, exercise intolerance, weakness and collapse, among others [1,3] Horses may suffer from physiologic murmurs and benign arrhythmias, and distinguishing those caused by cardiac abnormalities may be difficult [4], unless the veterinarian is a clinician veterinarian specialized in equine cardiology
This latter point is very important as horses collapsing during exercise may suffer catastrophic lesions and up to 22.8% of riders were injured during these episodes and while riding a horse that presented sudden death (Figure 1) [5]
We believe this could be a very useful Decision Support System (DSS), because cardiac diseases are not very common in horses, so a small proportion of veterinarians have a background in equine cardiology
Summary
Heart murmurs and arrhythmias are commonly identified in riding horses [1,2]. Most horses with cardiac disease have a useful performance life, but they can occasionally develop clinical signs that vary from slightly altered clinical signs to poor performance, exercise intolerance, weakness and collapse, among others [1,3] Horses may suffer from physiologic murmurs and benign arrhythmias, and distinguishing those caused by cardiac abnormalities may be difficult [4], unless the veterinarian is a clinician veterinarian specialized in equine cardiology. An important challenge for the general equine clinician is to establish whether a cardiopathy has no clinical relevance or, it has an impact on the horse’s performance and life expectancy or on the horse’s and rider’s safety [1]. This latter point is very important as horses collapsing during exercise may suffer catastrophic lesions and up to 22.8% of riders were injured during these episodes and while riding a horse that presented sudden death (Figure 1) [5]. Appropriately clinical management of heart disease in riding horses may be imperative, for increasing the horse’s life-expectancy, and for human safety concerns
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