Curvalaria Cochliobolus. HELP

[Amtabj]

My horse has been diagnosed with this. It’s bumps under her skin. It has been diagnosed through biopsy/PCR and bloodwork. I’m assuming they’re correct. Treatment has been 2.4 g of itraconazole for four months. They are still growing. My mare is healthy otherwise, but no vet or internal medicine vet or anyone or even answer me back never mind try to help me. Other than my own vet who is at a loss other than the treatment that the lab suggested. I will attach photos, this is a small group of people so perhaps someone has some experience
TIA

[2tempe]

Interesting - I have a horse who has two of these, one near front knee and one on his muzzle, above the noseband. They are slightly smaller than a pea, and do not, in our case, seem to be growing. Sort of hard. I didn’t think too much about them as he is gray and 21; has his share of melanomas, which thankfully haven’t multiplied or changed over the last few years. Does my description correspond with what your horse has? I guess I may get the vet to look.
Sorry, not much help here.
Edited to add: google tells me that this is a fungal thing, so the long treatment with itraconazole makes sense. I was on it for about 3 months after being diagnosed with histoplasmosis (also fungal) a bunch of years ago.

[Amtabj]

@2tempe Hey there thanks for chiming in, it does sound similar to your horses spots, my mare’s didn’t start to grow and increase in number for a few months. It probably took at least six weeks to get a proper diagnosis, she was originally diagnosed with valley fever, which horses in my area TN/AL are generally not expose to it. It’s more of a South western US thing. I had to do more bloodwork and send it to university or Florida and Missouri to get correct ( hopefully) results.
Anyway I have reached out to Haygard‘s internal medicine team and to several other vets and I’m having difficulty getting anyone to get back to me. No one seems to know what I’m talking about.

https://www.scielo.br/j/abmvz/a/rk55KLFcQpzYQkNGk58BcYH/?format=pdf&lang=en

This is the one report that even my own vet could find. I am beginning to wonder if the dosage of itraconazole is correct. And also it is 2.5 G, I had a typo in my first post. anyway I know I’m beginning to ramble. I’m hoping someone will chime in who has some experience. Thanks again for reaching out

[Ghazzu]

@Amtabj

no vet or internal medicine vet or anyone or even answer me back never mind try to help me. Other than my own vet who is at a loss other than the treatment that the lab suggested. I will attach photos, this is a small group of people so perhaps someone has some experience

What kind of an answer are you looking for?
Considering the paucity of information in the literature, I’d imagine that this is an uncommonly diagnosed condition, and therefore most DVMs have no experience with it to relate to you.

[Amtabj]

@Ghazzu
The bumps are not going away, they can continue to get larger and spread over her body and internally eventually going into the trachea. I want to know how to treat her properly. I am not trying to get information for free, I am happy to do a consult labs do another biopsy whatever I need to do. I just need help

[Xanthoria]

My horse had sporotrichosis 10 years ago. It was treated with itraconazole at $400/month compounded by Rood & Riddle, and weekly sodium iodide infusions. It took 6 months to cure and was exhausting, but it did work.

I recommend asking your vet to reach out to their colleagues in bacteriology and micology at a vet teaching university as mine did to get more answers, or just do it yourself?

Weird crusty sore on legs - any ideas?

Update? How did you go with the DMSO?

[Amtabj]

@Xanthoria
Thank you so much. I am going to reach out to Rood and Riddle tomorrow. Hopefully they will help me. Haygard has not been terribly responsive unfortunately.
Thx again.

[Xanthoria]

Good luck - with these rare things you do have to do extra legwork if your vet is not well connected or curious.

[Fiesta01]

Jingles to you and your horse. Hopefully, Rood and Riddle can give you some info on how better to deal with this.

[mbv]

Hi, if you PM me I can connect you with a consultation.

[Amtabj]

@mbv just pm’d you and THANK YOU!!

[Dbliron]

Ask your vet to post it on the international veterinary forums. That often produces answers specific to weird and wonderful issues, in my experience.

[Amtabj]

@Dbliron That’s a wonderful idea.
I will do that!