Sarcoid talk and useful tip

Laura_107

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Oct 15, 2010
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I went to a client night last night on the subject of sarcoids, Kev doesn't have any (or so I thought!) but I know nothing about them and wanted to learn a bit.

It was a brilliant talk by Prof. Knottenbelt from Liverpool University, he is the UK's expert in sarcoids and where your vet will send any photo's or biopsy. A very passionate and enthusiastic guy, but bloody hell, it was terrifying!

Half way through the talk my blood ran cold as I realised that 'scar' on Kev's leg that was passed off as 'a kick in the field that was healing over' when I bought him, was in fact, an occult sarcoid! Anyway, it's not getting in the way, it's not got any nodules and it's not changed in the year I've had him....so I'm not getting myself into too much of a tizz.

The main points I took from the talk (and thought I would share with you) are:

- They can come in all shapes and sizes, even a slight change in coat colour/appearance can indicate the first stages of a sarcoid
- A sarcoid is CANCER and should be treated as such, not a wart. It is a serious disease.
- Once you interfere with them, they come back with a vengence - do NOT attempt to treat it yourself by banding, toothpaste, camrosa etc.
- They are often found with a halo effect round them (Kev's has a scaley bit in the middle surrounded by a halo of baldness)
- They are highly likely to be transferred by fly bites, but only within a sarcoid horse (eg. if a fly was to bite Kev's sarcoid, then move to a wound elsewhere on his body, this may cause a transfer of cells and a sarcoid would pop up at the wound site) or horses who have compatible tissue (eg. just like humans can donate organs to a compatible person needing a transplant, a sarcoid could only be transferred from horse to horse if they were compatible)
- They are often found on a vein (since that's where flies go to bite!)
- They often pop up at wound sites and are mistaken for proud flesh, make your vet triple check that it definitely is proud flesh before they chop it off!
- Melignant tumors are mainly found on the elbow, face and inside thigh areas. If your horse has a sarcoid here, please get it checked.

A sarcoid horse is prone to more sarcoids, and you have to be very careful if a sarcoid horse ever gets a wound. He suggested mixing 50ml of ivermectin wormer into a tub of vasleine and using that to cover any wound and any sarcoid (using different pots) immediately if a sarcoid horse get's a wound.

Kev's sarcoid will now be covered in the vaseline mixture every summer! :redface:
 
Eek. Scary stuff thankyou for sharing.
I went to a talk by prof knottenbelt a while ago. He is excellent at giving lectures and very nice to speak to. My mate asked him about Flipo's willy problem and it was him who suggested piles cream (although sadly that isn't working now!) top guy.
 
Hmm, I got rid of four sarcoids on my horse using a herbal method. I know of two people locally who had an ENORMOUS problem using Dr Knottenbelts treatment which is hugely invasive and not guaranteed to work - it didn't in either case.

I believe a lot of sarcoids are caused by a poor immune system, usually brought on by stress. Greys (or in our case, few spot appaloosas) are more prone to skin issues. Mine had four homes in the year before I bought him, so hardly surprising he erupted in sarcoids which was confirmed when I had him vetted. He has been sarcoid free for three years now.

I personally would always try a gentler method first rather than going for a painful and not always successful one, but I do understand that he is very persuasive.
 
Eek. Scary stuff thankyou for sharing.
I went to a talk by prof knottenbelt a while ago. He is excellent at giving lectures and very nice to speak to. My mate asked him about Flipo's willy problem and it was him who suggested piles cream (although sadly that isn't working now!) top guy.

FM, I suggest you speak to Roger Hatch at Trinity Consultants regarding Flips problem. He is without a doubt the most helpful and knowlegeable man I have ever spoken to regarding untold issues - be prepared to be on the phone for quite a long time, but he is an absolute diamond.

I believe he has quite a lot of success with getting shot of sarcoids too. I hadn't come across him at the time that Tobes had them, or I would most certainly have spoken to him about it.
 
Hmm, I got rid of four sarcoids on my horse using a herbal method. I know of two people locally who had an ENORMOUS problem using Dr Knottenbelts treatment which is hugely invasive and not guaranteed to work - it didn't in either case.

I believe a lot of sarcoids are caused by a poor immune system, usually brought on by stress. Greys (or in our case, few spot appaloosas) are more prone to skin issues. Mine had four homes in the year before I bought him, so hardly surprising he erupted in sarcoids which was confirmed when I had him vetted. He has been sarcoid free for three years now.

I personally would always try a gentler method first rather than going for a painful and not always successful one, but I do understand that he is very persuasive.

Ziggy had a fly-carried sarcoid last year which was treated by Newmarket cream for 2 days. It was big and nasty. The cream made it erupt most vilely and my livery mate and I lost our nerve and stopped using it. I soothed the area with a herbal cream and then used thuja oil. The sarcoid vanished completely.

I still offer Z thuja oil regularly as a preventative. Sometimes he takes it, sometimes he doesn't. I have no idea if the sarcoid will appear again but suspect like sjp1 that they are more likely to happen when a horse's immune system is compromised.
 
Hmm, I got rid of four sarcoids on my horse using a herbal method. I know of two people locally who had an ENORMOUS problem using Dr Knottenbelts treatment which is hugely invasive and not guaranteed to work - it didn't in either case.

What part of the treatment is invasive? What is the treatment that Dr Knottenbelts advises. I don't see a problem with the advise that Laura_107 suggested so I presume that you are talking about something that she didn't mention?
 
Thanks for posting this advice Laura. Luckily Ben has never suffered from Sarcoids but my old share horse had one. They confuse me because everyone has a different opinion on how to deal with them.
 
Hmm, I got rid of four sarcoids on my horse using a herbal method. I know of two people locally who had an ENORMOUS problem using Dr Knottenbelts treatment which is hugely invasive and not guaranteed to work - it didn't in either case.

I believe a lot of sarcoids are caused by a poor immune system, usually brought on by stress. Greys (or in our case, few spot appaloosas) are more prone to skin issues. Mine had four homes in the year before I bought him, so hardly surprising he erupted in sarcoids which was confirmed when I had him vetted. He has been sarcoid free for three years now.

I personally would always try a gentler method first rather than going for a painful and not always successful one, but I do understand that he is very persuasive.

I must admit SJP, it was not lost on us that the lovely Professor (and he really was a lovely man!) makes a lot of money from sarcoids, he is the UK expert, and he is obviously going to tell you to go to a vet rather than self-diagnosing and choosing your own treatment. But at the same time, he has seen various horrific examples of sarcoids which had started off as perfectly treatable, but after being interfered with by their owners (by attempting to band them or use some other form of homeopathic treatment) had been damaged and thus the growth had accelerated and had become either untreatable or required very invasive treatment that wouldn't have been needed in the first place.

He showed us one truely awful example of a woman who had refused radiation treatment for a small sarcoid on her horses eye. A few months later she called him up declaring she now wanted it...turns up with a horse whose whole face is one massive sarcoid. Understandably Prof. K was spitting mad on the horses behalf. It had to be put down. I think this is the reason he was so insistant that we should go to our vets or directly to him.

He also agreed that there is some link to the immune system, he talked about sarcoids that had cleared up on their own, and he believes this is some sort of immune response. He would like to study this further, as it could give us the answers.

I must admit, after that talk, I would not be fiddling around with a self-diagnosed sarcoid. Just like I wouldn't choose homeopathic methods to treat myself if I was to get skin cancer.

That being said, a fair few of us at the yard have realised our horses have sarcoids since the talk (I am one of them!), all of us have self-diagnosed and all of us are just burying our heads in the sand and waiting to see if they get any worse! :redface:
 
What part of the treatment is invasive? What is the treatment that Dr Knottenbelts advises. I don't see a problem with the advise that Laura_107 suggested so I presume that you are talking about something that she didn't mention?

There are 40 different treatment methods for sarcoids, Prof. K doesn't advise one route in particular, it depends on the sarcoid what method would be chosen. There are topical treatments (Liverpool cream, etc), invasive treatments (laser surgery, etc) or radiotherapy (similar to what you would get for human cancer) among others.

Here is some info http://www.liv.ac.uk/sarcoids/, and treatment methods http://www.liv.ac.uk/sarcoids/treatment/
 
I had a friend whose horse had the Liverpool cream for her horse that the vet had to come and apply as it is very strong and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. I think it worked and I don't recall the horse being unduly worried / upset by the treatment. However, I think it's like a lot of things within the horse world - in that it isn't always black and white and one particular route may not always be the one another horse person ought to follow. For me personally, I am lucky to have access to a really fantastic team of equine only vets whom I trust to help me choose the right treatment for my horses. I also like to make informed choices so I think it can only do good learning as much as possible about a particular subject.
 
Does anyone know if sarcoids are a relatively "new" complaint or have they always been around? I don't seem to remember reading about them in any of my horse care manuals from the 1980's?
 
I think in the past people fussed less about horses, and a lot of things like warts, sarcoids, melanomas and skin tags were lumped together (excuse the pun) as "lumps and bumps". But I might be utterly wrong, I am sure someone else will correct me if so!
 
There are 40 different treatment methods for sarcoids, Prof. K doesn't advise one route in particular, it depends on the sarcoid what method would be chosen. There are topical treatments (Liverpool cream, etc), invasive treatments (laser surgery, etc) or radiotherapy (similar to what you would get for human cancer) among others.

Here is some info http://www.liv.ac.uk/sarcoids/, and treatment methods http://www.liv.ac.uk/sarcoids/treatment/

Thank you. Will have a good read when I get home.
 
Prof. K said his research some years ago (I can't remember how long ago though) said that on average 2.5% of horses had 2.5 sarcoids, his most recent research showed that (from memory) on average 80% of horses had 25.5 sarcoids (although that second number seems high, so don't quote me on that!).

Basically, yes the numbers are going up, but I wondered how much of that was due to people just realising they were sarcoids rather than dismissing them as warts.
 
This is a great thread. My girl has two sarcoids; one under her arm which has not been treated but is not causing any problems and has not changed. The other is on her face and has been treated in the past with Liverpool cream but it's not worked.
My girl has somehow scratched the one on her face and was bleeding a little. I'm a tad worried as I know that if they get damaged they can get mega angry...
Any thoughts?
 
Prof K would tell you to get the vet out, it's likely to get angry and sarcoids on the face are more likely to be malignant. Personally (and I'm not advocating you do this, I am completely inexperienced when it comes to sarcoids!) I would watch it like a hawk and call the vet if there are any changes. If the Liverpool cream didn't work, what about trying again or trying different treatments? Personally I would go for radiotherapy but that's because I know most about radiopharmaceuticals.
 
I think in the past people fussed less about horses, and a lot of things like warts, sarcoids, melanomas and skin tags were lumped together (excuse the pun) as "lumps and bumps". But I might be utterly wrong, I am sure someone else will correct me if so!

Yes you're probably right.
 
This is a great thread. My girl has two sarcoids; one under her arm which has not been treated but is not causing any problems and has not changed. The other is on her face and has been treated in the past with Liverpool cream but it's not worked.
My girl has somehow scratched the one on her face and was bleeding a little. I'm a tad worried as I know that if they get damaged they can get mega angry...
Any thoughts?

I can only suggest if the Liverpool cream has not worked, then it is possibly an immune system issue.

I know it appears as if I work for Roger Hatch of Trinity Consultants (I don't!) but I see he has had success with sarcoids. After me ringing him with woeful tales of Tobes incredibly bad behaviour after moving yards, his 'losing' of a back leg and my worry that he was PSSM, he immediately came up with an idea for what the problem might well be, one I had never,ever come across, and he would appear to be right.

I got shot of Tobes sarcoids with Global Herbs Sarc-Ex, they do a stronger version called Sarc-Off I believe, but it has to be vet prescribed. My vet who is an equine vet, worked in NZ for a long time and is not a fluffy bunny, said if I wanted it, he would order it for me, his own girlfriend got shot of sweetitch with some herbal concoction which made him think again about alternative methods!!
 
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