21st century translational foal medicine

Summary Sepsis and perinatal asphyxia syndrome can be hard to differentiate in the foal, which is perhaps not surprising as in both conditions the major clinical signs are manifestations of the immune response to the inciting cause, rather than the inciting cause itself. One manifestation of this response is called the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). SIRS refers to changes in the foal’s heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature and/or white cell count in the face of infection or inflammation, which are taken to reflect cytokine activation ...