Header image courtesy of StableLab.com

Gone are the times that your vet arrives, takes a blood sample and you have to wait for your results.

We have on site blood analysis machines capable of giving you your horses blood results in under an hour – Thats from taking the sample to getting your results. Not content with this speed and efficiency, we felt we needed to be able to offer our patients more….

Historically we used external laboratories to monitor what are called Acute Phase Proteins – mainly a protein called Serum Amyloid A (SAA). This protein rises and fall quickly when infection is present. So why measure it?

Firstly it is important that we establish whether there is an infection and associated inflammation. SAA rises rapidly when infection is present, enabling us to use further laboratory samples to isolate what type of infection is present and be more precise when it comes to providing the correct course of treatment / advice. Due to the specific nature of SAA, consistent rises or falls enable us to carefully monitor how a patient is “coping” and whether a change in treatment protocol is required. We are very aware that some conditions require us to make quick decisions on how to manage a case and can sometimes be a matter of ‘life and death’ – therefore being able to make these decisions on the yard was imperative to us.

Therefore we purchased a new piece of equipment which allows us to do this. The StableLab SAA reader gives us the ability to measure SAA on your yard in just 9 minutes! There have been several cases already where we have been able to say with a high degree of certainty if a patient is getting better, or worse and have made appropriate clinical decisions on this basis alone.

For more information on the reader download the infographic here, or head on over to our YouTube channel to see the reader itself.

We can hear people worrying about the price – this test is under £30! Therefore if you want peace of mind and conclusive answers SAA monitoring might be discussed.

Got a question? Then drop us a line and we can explain some more.