Postanesthetic hemorrhagic myelopathy in a horse

Acute hemorrhagic myelopathy developed in the sixth cervical to the eighth thoracic spinal cord segments of a 1-year-old Quarter Horse colt that was castrated under general anesthesia while in dorsal recumbency. Clinical signs were consistent with severe transverse myelopathy caudal to the brachial enlargement and cranial to the lumbosacral enlargement of the spinal cord. Histologic examination of the spinal cord revealed hemorrhage in the gray matter, with multiple blood-filled clefts in otherwise normal neuropil. Hemodynamic changes in the spinal cord associated with anesthesia and dorsal recumbency may have led to hypoxic vessel damage, with massive hemorrhage after surgery, when the horse was returned to lateral recumbency. Postanesthetic hemorrhagic myelopathy is a possible complication of positioning in dorsal recumbency, during anesthesia, in rapidly growing, young horses.