Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Severe nasal hemorrhage in an anesthetized horse.
- Journal:
- Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
- Year:
- 1997
- Authors:
- Trim, C M et al.
- Affiliation:
- Department of Large Animal Medicine · United States
- Species:
- horse
Plain-English summary
An 8-year-old Thoroughbred gelding was undergoing surgery to fix a serious digestive issue called right dorsal displacement of the ascending colon. After the surgery, when the veterinarians removed a tube used to help with the horse's stomach, he started bleeding heavily from his nose and lost a significant amount of blood. To manage this, the veterinary team gave him fluids and medications to help stabilize his blood pressure, and they started a blood transfusion after the bleeding was controlled. However, they had to stop the transfusion after giving him a little over 2 liters of blood because they suspected he was having a bad reaction to it. This case shows that while certain treatments can help maintain blood pressure after a lot of blood loss, using hypertonic saline solution (a type of salt solution) might worsen bleeding if the bleeding isn't fully stopped first.
Abstract
An 8-year-old Thoroughbred gelding with colic was anesthetized for surgical correction of right dorsal displacement of the ascending colon. Removal of the nasogastric tube at the end of surgery resulted in hemorrhage from the nares and loss of 24 L of blood. Treatment included administration of acetated Ringer's solution, hypertonic saline solution, and dobutamine. A blood transfusion was started after hemorrhage was controlled, and arterial pressure was restored to the prehemorrhage value, but was stopped after infusion of 2.7 L of blood because of a suspected adverse reaction. This case indicates that infusion of balanced electrolyte solution, hypertonic saline solution, and dobutamine may maintain adequate arterial pressure after severe blood loss, and also supports the suggestion that administration of hypertonic saline solution potentiates blood loss in the absence of hemostasis.
Find similar cases for your pet
PetCaseFinder finds other peer-reviewed reports of pets with the same symptoms, plus a plain-English summary of what was tried across them.
Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9143539/