Читать книгу Fractures in the Horse - Группа авторов - Страница 80

All but a very few epidemiological studies that have sought to identify risk factors for fracture have been conducted in Thoroughbreds, and from these a large number of different risk factors have been shown to be associated with various different fracture outcomes. Some risk factors have been identified in one or two studies only, and others are clearly not modifiable. For this reason, the primary focus of this section is on the more commonly identified risk factors and those that have the potential to be altered by way of carefully designed interventions.

Gender is a good example of a risk factor for fracture that has been commonly identified as being important [18, 19,39–41]. However, it is obviously unrealistic to expect male or female horses to be prevented from racing, or indeed entire males to be gelded purely to reduce the risk of fracture when racing. However, such findings do have value in that they may provide insight into the pathogenesis of a particular injury type. From an analytical point of view, it is also important to include such risk factors in multivariable models to account for the potential confounding effect that they may have on other risk factors within the model, so they will continue to be reported, even if their impact and usefulness are limited.