Recent surgeries

Hobday’s procedure

This is one of the most common surgeries performed at Cotts Farm. Horses with laryngeal hemiplegia are described as ‘roarers’ because they make a loud nose when exercising. This condition commonly effects large horses, whereby the muscle which opens the larynx during exercise becomes paralysed. As a result, the left side of the larynx collapses across the airway, making noise and decreasing the supply of air to the lungs. It is diagnosed from history and using an endoscope to visualise the larynx. More severe paralysis limits air supply and therefore limits performance.

Sir Frederick Hobday invented and described this procedure in the early part of the twentieth century. In it, the laryngeal ventricles and vocal cord are removed in order to allow the subsequent scarring to stabilise the area and prevent the vibrations from making the noise. It effectively reduces and even removes the noise, but does not always completely resolve exercise tolerance. For more severe cases, a laryngeal tie-back in combination with a Hobday’s procedure provides a more reliable means to restore full exercise tolerance.

A ventral laryngotomy incision is created on the bottom side of the throat. Entering the airway through a large natural ‘window’ between two cartilages of the larynx, the ventricles and vocal cord can easily be viewed and removed. A Hobday burr is inserted into the ventricle to pull them out before cutting them out.

The incision in the larynx is normally sutured, the skin incision healing naturally over around 2 -3 weeks. Horses usually return to work after 6 weeks.

This traditional surgery is rapidly being replaced by the same technique performed standing using a surgical laser. We have already performed one such case at Cotts and hope to consign the ‘traditional approach’ described here by the laser technique very soon in 2009.