Orthopedics

Injection returns horses to prior level of performance

A single injection of equicenta CTM (Equine Performance Labs) improved lameness, pain and swelling at a level greater than clinician-selected standard of care, and nearly tripled the odds of horses returning to their prior level of performance, according to a study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science (13:1833933. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2026.1833933).

The pragmatic, prospective controlled trial enrolled 138 lame performance horses with 195 conditions affecting the joints, tendons and ligaments, across 8 US equine veterinarian practices, with 135 completing the full 26-week follow-up. The investigators compared equicenta CTM head-to-head against the top treatments of choice, mostly biologics including hemoderivatives—a real-world design that reflects the decisions that veterinarians make every day.

Across every measured clinical outcome, equicenta CTM outperformed the standard of care:

• Greater improvement in pain and swelling by 2 weeks, and lameness improvement by 4 weeks
• All clinical outcomes were significantly better through 12 weeks (P<0.001).
• The odds of returning to prior performance level were 2.72:1 in favor of equicenta CTM (P<0.006).
• Clients reported the horse’s body condition, hair coat, overall health and quality of life were all significantly better (P<0.03).
• equicenta CTM was associated with fewer injection-related adverse events than standard of care.
• Kinematic gait analysis confirmed significantly greater improvement in lameness.

These findings are notable because equicenta CTM required no harvesting, culturing or patient-side processing. For a profession where treatment choices are often constrained by time, cost and variability among products, an off-the-shelf allograft with reproducible, peer-reviewed results offers a meaningful advance in how lameness is managed in performance horses.

The study was led by Alicia L. Bertone, DVM, PhD, DACVS, professor emeritus, The Ohio State University, together with 12 co-authors across 9 institutions, including Equine Athlete Veterinary Services, Tryon Equine Hospital, Woodland Run Equine Veterinary Facility, Peterson Smith Equine Hospital, Performance Veterinary Equine Services, Austin Equine Hospital, Palm Beach Equine Clinic and Ocala Equine Hospital. MeV