135 22 - 23 April 2009 6 th Int.  Sci. Conf., MANSOURA اﻟﺒﺤﺚ رﻗﻢ) 7 ( CLINICAL AND LABORATORY INVESTIGATIONS OF GASTRIC DILATATION IN DRAFT HORSES BY Mohammed A. Youssef*, Taha A. Fouda*, Sabry A. El-Khodery*, Adel E. Zaghloul** and Maged R. El-Ashker* *Department of Internal Medicine, Infectious and Fish Diseases. **Department of Surgery, Radiology and Anesthesiology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt ABSTRACT A total of forty native breed draft horses of both sexes were examined; from which twenty five cases exhibited clinical signs of abdominal pain, in addition to fifteen apparently healthy horses served as a control group. Clinical and laboratory variables were used to investigate gastric dilatation in draft horses. It was concluded that gastric dilatation in draft horses is a life threatening condition because of its difficult diagnosis under field condition; however, it could be tentatively diagnosed when the following variables are detected: severe unrelenting abdominal pain, presence of naso-gastric reflux through naso-gastric tube (only in cases of small intestinal obstruction), metabolic alkalosis, elevated anion gap, hyperlactemia, hyperglycemia and azotemia. Key words: Clinical, Laboratory, Investigations, Gastric, Dilatation, Horses INTRODUCTION Gastric dilatation in horses was a life threatening caused by gastric impaction or secondary to intestinal obstruction. It might be associated with overeating fermentable feedstuffs such as grains, lush grass, and beet pulp (Khan et al., 2005). If untreated, gastric dilatation associated with overeating could rapidly led to gastric rupture. If intestinal