1 year injectable flea and tick control

Hello, Summarians!

Amazing. Injectable flea and tick protection that is good for 1 year could boost compliance to unprecedented levels. What do you think?

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One-Year Injectable Flea and Tick Control

The Australian paralysis tick, Ixodes holocyclus, is known to cause ascending flaccid paralysis in various domestic animals and humans. Its range extends along the eastern coast of Australia, and it can be found up to 100 km inland in some areas. The tick primarily resides in bushland and wet forest areas, with native wildlife like bandicoots serving as natural hosts. However, dogs and cats are more susceptible to its toxins and can experience severe illness or even fatality from a single tick bite. Research has shown that the production of holocyclotoxin, the neurotoxin responsible for paralysis, significantly increases in the tick's salivary glands after the fourth day of attachment to the host. Clinical signs of paralysis typically appear on the fourth or fifth day post attachment. Therefore, it's crucial to remove these ticks within three days to prevent severe illness or death in infested dogs. Efforts to treat and prevent tick paralysis in animals have been limited, with three major achievements in the past century. These include the availability of tick antiserum, advances in veterinary critical care, and the introduction of isoxazoline compounds for tick prevention. Isoxazolines like afoxolaner, lotilaner, and sarolaner require monthly oral treatments for tick prevention in dogs. Fluralaner offers a more convenient option with chewable tablets providing four months of protection and spot-on formulations providing six months of protection. This sustained activity reduces the risk of owner compliance failures, particularly in areas with a high exposure risk to I. holocyclus. An injectable fluralaner suspension has been developed for veterinary use, providing year-long protection against ticks with a single administration. Two studies demonstrated its effectiveness in controlling I. holocyclus tick infestations for at least 13 months following treatment. Mortality of ticks on treated dogs exceeded 90% at 24 and 48 hours post infestation. No treatment-related adverse events were reported in these studies. It's recommended to search dogs daily for live ticks and remove them during the three days following treatment with fluralaner injectable suspension. In conclusion, the injectable fluralaner suspension is highly effective against I. holocyclus tick infestations in dogs for up to 13 months after a single treatment. It can help ensure owner compliance with tick control recommendations, reducing the risk of tick paralysis. However, vigilance against tick infestations remains essential as no product can guarantee 100% effectiveness in all cases. 

Fisara, P., Guerino, F. Year-round efficacy of a single treatment of fluralaner injectable suspension (Bravecto Quantum^TM) against repeated infestations with Ixodes holocyclus in dogs. Parasites Vectors 16, 375 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-023-05951-6 

 Bottom Line- Wow! This could be a game changer if/when it gets approved in the US.

AI Interpretation and Sesmaoid disease in Horses

Proximal sesamoiditis is a common radiographic abnormality observed in Thoroughbred yearlings, associated with injury to the suspensory ligament branches at their insertion on the proximal sesamoid bones. Clinically affected horses may exhibit pain or lameness, particularly at high speed. Several studies have demonstrated an association between significant sesamoiditis and poorer future racing performance. A robust association also exists between sesamoiditis and subclinical suspensory ligament branch change (SSLBC), suggesting an elevated risk of future suspensory ligament branch injury (SLBI). Diagnosing sesamoiditis is not simply a matter of identifying its presence but entails grading its severity. Yearlings with more severe sesamoiditis face a higher risk of future injuries and a longer-term of performance decline. For more precise assessment, we adopted the modified Spike-Pierce scale, categorizing sesamoiditis based on the radiographic features of abnormal vascular channels on the sesamoid bone. However, the diagnostic challenge is that some yearlings with sesamoiditis do not show obvious clinical signs of SLBI such as swelling or lameness, and even palpation may also give false negatives. In addition, false positives may also occur when using ultrasound to detect suspensory ligament branch lesions. Accurate grading of sesamoiditis through radiographs is therefore imperative, especially during prepurchase examinations. In response, our research introduces deep learning (DL) for the automated detection and classification of sesamoiditis in horses via radiographs. This approach reduces the workload of veterinarians and bridges differences in experience, allowing for more precise diagnosis. DL utilizes artificial neural networks to replicate tasks akin to human cognition. These networks are structured similarly to the human brain, composed of interconnected nodes that resemble neurons. Through iterative adjustments of the model's parameters, DL can process and learn from training data to perform specific tasks. It has seen extensive application in human medical imaging, notably in image segmentation, classification, and detection tasks. However, the application of DL to equine medicine is much less studied, facing constraints due to the dearth of horse medical images. To address this gap, our study introduces a novel DL framework for sesamoiditis diagnosis in equines. The proposed DL framework combines 2 RetinaNets, with an integrated self-attention mechanism, designed to effectively localize and grade sesamoiditis severity in radiographs. RetinaNet is a popular DL model designed for object detection tasks. This serial architecture significantly improved the accuracy for normal and moderate sesamoiditis cases. However, it struggled to identify mild sesamoiditis accurately, frequently misclassifying mild cases as moderate ones. Despite these strengths, serial RetinaNets and junior veterinarians tended to share similar limitations in discerning subtle variations in radiographs. The self-attention mechanism enhanced the model's ability to discern subtle variations in the representation of vascular channels on radiographs, particularly for mild cases. It helped reduce the influence of irrelevant features and enhanced the capture of global information. In conclusion, this study presents a novel deep-learning approach with serial architecture and self-attention for localization and grading of equine sesamoiditis using radiographic imaging. The proposed model addresses the challenge of large image size and shows potential clinical applications for more precise diagnosis of sesamoiditis in horses. 

Guo, L., Yu, X., Thair, A., Rideout, A., Collins, A., Wang, Z. J., & Hore, M. (2023). Deep learning model shows promise for detecting and grading sesamoiditis in horse radiographs. American Journal of Veterinary Research https://doi.org/10.2460/ajvr.23.07.0173 

Bottom line — The machines are coming and they are good…

Fatty Acids Help with Hepatitis

The passage discusses the increasing prevalence of metabolic diseases associated with obesity, particularly nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its progressive form, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which have become significant causes of morbidity and mortality. It highlights that despite available treatments for co-morbidities like obesity and type 2 diabetes, there is no specific FDA-approved treatment for NASH, and many drugs targeting specific molecular pathways have not shown significant efficacy. The passage introduces the potential therapeutic effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω3 PUFA), particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), in managing NASH. It notes that ω3 PUFA levels are lower in the livers of NASH patients compared to healthy individuals. Dietary supplementation with ω3 PUFA has been successful in reducing liver steatosis and hepatic fibrosis in preclinical mouse models and in treating NAFLD in children and adults. The mechanisms of how ω3 PUFA improve liver health are not fully understood, but various effects have been observed, including regulation of fatty acid synthesis, oxidation, inflammation, and potentially positive impacts on liver function. Additionally, ω3 PUFA may influence gut microbiota, which plays a role in the pathogenesis of NAFLD/NASH. The study described in the passage used a comprehensive systems approach to investigate the impact of EPA and/or DHA on the liver transcriptome, metabolome, and lipidome. It identified betacellulin (BTC) as a master regulatory molecule downregulated by ω3 PUFA in the NASH liver. Further experiments validated the impact of BTC on hepatic stellate cells and macrophages, highlighting its role in promoting fibrosis and inflammation. The passage suggests that DHA's inhibition of BTC, along with its effects on TLR2/4 agonists and integrin pathways, contributes to the reduction of fibrosis in NASH. The study also points out potential effects of DHA on mitochondrial function-related pathways and its role in inhibiting inflammation. In addition, the passage highlights the potential role of BTC in promoting cell growth and activating ERBB pathways, contributing to the development of liver cancer. DHA's impact on BTC and related pathways may have implications for preventing NASH progression into liver cancer. Overall, the passage emphasizes the significance of ω3 PUFA, particularly DHA, in potentially treating NASH and preventing its progression to liver cancer. It underscores the need for further research to understand the full extent of DHA's therapeutic effects and its potential as a personalized therapy for NAFLD/NASH. 

Multi-omic network analysis identified betacellulin as a novel target of omega-3 fatty acid attenuation of western diet-induced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis Jyothi Padiadpu, Manuel Garcia-Jaramillo, Nolan K Newman, Jacob W Pederson, Richard Rodrigues, Zhipeng Li, Sehajvir Singh, Philip Monnier, Giorgio Trinchieri, Kevin Brown, Amiran K Dzutsev, Natalia Shulzhenko, Donald B Jump, Andrey Morgun EMBO Mol Med (2023) https://doi.org/10.15252/emmm.202318367 

Bottom line — They seem to help down-regulate the chronic inflammatory process — good for other disease processes too..

Just putting things in perspective …