Vets opinion on the spleen

[docicu3]

C'mon now, next I'll be reading on here about strapping an oxygen mask on Curlin for a boost of good ole O2 right before loading the horse into the gate at 06:00 PM Saturday......only to be outdone by Dr Pletcher booking a hyperbaric oxygen room at 3 atmospheres for Any Given Sunday........

It may seem like a good idea to have a large spleen dumping venous blood already extracted of it's goodies from the arterial side hoping the extra RBC's might provide additional opportunity for oxygen delivery but if the hemoglobin value starts out normal then O2 delivery will remain unchanged.

or

DO2 = CO (cardiac output)/BSA (body surface area) X 1.34 (amount of oxygen dissolved in hemoglobin) X Hgb X SaO2 (oxygen saturation) X 10 (normal hemoglobin # in humans)

I am sure that horse normals are probably slightly different but the basic principles of oxygen delivery and extraction don't change.

So unfortunately we reach the limits of our physiology unless we can somehow dissolve more oxygen in hemoglobin to deliver to the tissues during anaerobic threshold. We can train animals to run efficiently just below AT but after that we run out of ways to manipulate the equation.

Unless you want to cheat........by milkshakes and designer drugs which help the animals to avoid AT......but nobody here would do that!!!!



For what it is worth splenic hypertrophy or hypersplenism in humans is associated with red cell imperfection such as in Thalasemia as the spleen hypertrophy's as it collects filtered denatured red cells. Broken shriveled red cells are as useless for carrying oxygen. So maybe Secreteriat had a massive spleen but thats not likely why he ran around race tracks like Kenyan's run up mountains.

Good luck this week DT's......

DrD