Standing Resection of the Interspinous Ligament for the Treatment of Kissing Spines

Dorsal spinous process (DSP) impingement or overriding (ORDSP), colloquially known as ‘kissing spines’, has been reported as the commonest cause of back pain in horses (Jeffcott 1980). Nonoperative treatment strategies include rest, physiotherapy, injection of corticosteroid anti-inflammatory drugs, systemic treatment with bisphosphonate drugs and local shockwave therapy (Henson and Kidd 2009). Surgery is generally recommended when these strategies have failed (Walmsley et al.2002). Resection of the summits of one or more DSP in horses with kissing spines was first described by Roberts (1968) and with few modifications has become the standard surgical treatment for the condition. Interspinous ligament desmotomy (ISLD) was recently shown to provide a minimally invasive alternative treatment with equivalent success rates (Coomer et al. 2012). This abstract describes the method of ISLD and summarises the results in 82 clinical cases treated to date. [...]