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Research
4.
Cod liver oil/honey mixture: An effective
treatment of equine complicated lower leg wounds - Magda Mahmoud Ali, Khaled Radad
Vet World. 2011; 4(7): 304-310
doi: 10.5455/vetworld.2011.304-310
Abstract
Wounds are of great concern in animals as they
affect animal productivity and their treatment
represents an economic burden to the owners
particularly in developing countries. The present
study investigated the beneficial role of a
mixture of cod liver oil and honey in treatment of
old wounds in equines. In which, 3 horses and 7
donkeys were admitted to the Veterinary Teaching
Hospital at Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt with
old wounds at the metacarpus (5 cases) and
metatarsus (3 cases) and at the level of fetlock
and carpal joints (one case each). Treatment of
these wounds with cod liver oil/honey mixture
markedly decreased their sizes and resulted in
formation of a healthy scar after one month of
treatment. To explain the mechanisms that underlie
the effects of this mixture, 9 surgically-induced
wounds at the metacarpus in 9 donkeys were treated
with honey, cod liver oil or the mixture (3 wounds
each) and compared with parallel untreated control
wounds at the metatarsus. It was found that
treatment of wounds with honey, cod liver oil and
the mixture apparently decreased the size of
wounds. Histopathological examination revealed
that treated wounds with honey or cod liver oil
showed complete epithelization over the wound
areas. On the other hand, epithelization process
was not complete in wounds treated with the
mixture. Granulation tissue showed some
variability between different treatments. Of
which, wounds treated with the mixture showed a
higher degree of maturity with increasing numbers
of fibrocytes and parallel collagenous fibers.
This could underlie the good results obtained in
case studied wounds with the mixture. In
conclusion, mixture of cod liver oil and honey is
beneficial in treatment of old traumatized wounds
in equine and this effect is primarily mediated by
formation of healthy and mature scars. Cod liver
oil or honey alone is beneficial for healing of
recent and surgical wounds as they facilitate
epithelization process.
Keywords: Equine,
Wound, Healing, Honey, Cod liver oil.
