Surgical correction and componential analysis of enterolith in horse

After clinical and laboratory tests of a 12-year-old warmblood horse (castrated male, 540 kg) displaying symptom of pain, a diagnosis of intestinal obstruction due to foreign substances like sand was made and an abdominal section and enterotomy were conducted to confirm and extract the intestinal stone (enterolith) on the right dorsal part of the ascending colon. The extracted intestinal stone was around 2.9 kg and greenish brown rugby ball sized (22 cm × 10 cm) stone. Analysis of the element components (EDX) using a scanning electron microscope revealed percentages of C (30.08%), O (39.85%), Mg (3.89%), P (11.15%), and Ca (11.16%) at a magnification of 400. This was the first example of a successful extraction and treatment of intestinal stone in a horse domestically and thereby has its significance.