The name ‘sarcoid’ was originally given to the human condition in 1936 by a Dr. Jackson, a pathologist in South Africa. He used the name to describe the condition’s generally sarcomatous (tumourous) appearance. Prior to that, the condition was simply termed ‘wart’.

When it comes to our horses though, and no matter what products are out there, you’ll read everything from ‘worked like a miracle’ to ‘didn’t help at all’. One thing’s for certain though; they provide us humans with a level of hair-pulling frustration rarely seen with other equine conditions.

Personally I’ve not owned a horse with sarcoids, although my first pony passion (pocket-rocket Charlie at the local riding stables when I was a child) had a horrid one on his left eyelid, year in and year out. It was the shape and size of an adult human thumb, and every year it was banded off, yet sure as eggs are eggs it would grow right back again the following year. Which makes perfect sense - the sarcoid itself may have died through having its blood supply banded off, but the virus was still in Charlie's body to regrow right back.

Cut to 50-years on, and my former neighbour had a very charming Appaloosa who, as long as I’ve knew them (several years), had been afflicted with multiple sarcoids on his body, the worst being a horrible knarly growth, the size of a fist, literally surrounding his entire left eye socket. It was incredibly sore for him, with many open cracks, bleeding and weeping. My neighbour spent every spare waking moment researching a fix for him, and trying just about every product on the planet, including expensive products from the US. Needless to say we shared lengthy chats on all things sarcoids.

Of course, over the years I’ve had my own thoughts and opinions on sarcoids. Nevertheless, without any concrete evidential proof of anything that actually works for definite, whether natural or conventional, I’ve always been reluctant to promote any herbal support for the many enquiries I get for sarcoids, other than based around supporting immunity.

I’ve always believed that a poorly functioning immune system was somehow at the heart of sarcoids, and as we all know, immunity is at the very core of, well, everything. If immunity is in some way compromised, ‘stuff’ happens, and we also now know that the immune system relies entirely on a healthy gut microbiome. So, with a healthy biome and a healthy, fully functioning immune system, in theory the body should be equipped and ready with a strong resistance to have a darned good go at fighting whatever's invaded the host body.

Sarcoids update (as at 2017)

* A quick heads-up here - all of the following are my condensed notes from my own research on sarcoids. Sources are below and equally it's all out there on the world-wide-web.

Continual research and studies of equine sarcoids are proving invaluable in our understanding of them, and thank goodness for it, because research at least knows what sarcoids are not. They’re not a form of cancer, neither are they AIDS-related or an airborne disease. They’re also not contagious.

Sarcoids are the most common skin tumours to affect horses. They affect horses of all ages, breeds and colour. Six clinical types of sarcoids are recognised including occult, verrucose, nodular, fibroblastic, mixed and, sadly, malignant types. There’re no guarantees on how sarcoids will behave on any horse or how they’ll respond to a product; one size definitely does not fix all.

So on that cheery note, the variety of product options used in clinical practice include everything from cryosurgery, laser surgery, BCG immunotherapy and chemotherapy, and yet surgery appears to have a high failure rate due to the recurrence of the tumours. There’s also an extensive range of every kind of topical formula, from manuka honey (of which I've read good reports), zinc chloride cream and oddly, toothpaste (which many swear by).

Opinion time – personally I'm a bit on the fence regarding topicals for sarcoids, as I feel any topical interference could exacerbate cellular stimulation. That said, I've not read any sound studies on this though; this is just my own take.

What we can't argue with, though, is that with hundreds of different products used world-wide for sarcoids, this is a huge sign that there’s no known guaranteed fix. Certainly, there appears to be nothing effective enough to help against recurrence.

So let's look at the bovine papilloma virus (BPV)

Research has identified that a well-known cause of equine sarcoids is via infection with Bovine Papillomaviruses (BPV) types 1 and 2. It's now even thought that strains of BPV may be equine specific.

However, the method of transmission is still unclear, although flies are thought to be a significant factor, specifically the Musca autumnalis (face-fly) breed. The adult M.autumnalis wakes up from hibernation mid-spring and they just love cowpats. Loaded with all kinds of yuk from the cow poo, they then feed on secretions around not only cattle but also horse eyes, mouths and nostrils, mainly the female flies as they need extra protein provided by the animal host. They also love feeding on blood from horse-fly bites. The female flies then lay their eggs on fresh cow poo which hatch into maggots pretty soon after. 10-20 days later, there’s gazillions of new pesky adult face-flies.

For the record, this is the route that my neighbour thought caused Appy’s sarcoids. She consciously remembers a fly biting his eye and drawing blood; in all likelihood a pesky female face-fly landed with cowpat dribble on her feet and mouth. As the saying goes, the rest is history.

Science Alert: For the scientists out there, BPV-1/2 are "non-enveloped double stranded DNA viruses with a genome of approximately 8kbp that infect their natural host, cattle, causing papillomas of skin or mucosa which generally regress without eliciting any serious clinical problems in the host. None of the strategies for sarcoids directly target the viral infection."

Interesting study results

Individual equine sarcoid biopsies have identified both BPV types 1 and 2 but … It’s not yet known whether BPV is present in all sarcoids. It’s also unknown if the virus is found in other equine skin tumours or even in normal skin.

However, there are some pretty impressive statistics which prove it’s a major player. A study from the University of California, Davis, looked for BPV DNA in 55 sarcoid-affected horses, taking biopsies from both the sarcoids themselves and unaffected normal skin areas. A further 22 horses without sarcoids were sampled for comparison, as were several non-sarcoid skin tumours.

Here's the study result:

"Almost every sarcoid tumour observed (a whopping 98%) contained BPV DNA. 55% of horses with sarcoids had sarcoids with BPV-2, while 20% of those horses had BPV-1. 7% had both types of BPV present."

And the unaffected normal skin areas on the 55 sarcoid-afflicted horses? A surprising 63% of the normal-skin samples contained BPV DNA. All the biopsies from horses without sarcoids, as well as biopsies of other non-sarcoid tumors, were negative.

Wow. These findings suggest that BPV not only plays a role in sarcoid development, but is also capable of existing in a latent, non-virulent phase in the bloodstream/skin. This certainly gives a reason as to why surgical removal of sarcoid tumours is rarely successful because it just removes the visible presentation. There’s even a suggestion that surgery might actually activate the latent virus and trigger the formation of new sarcoids.

Top Tips to try

• If one of my horses developed sarcoids? Fly masks for sure, although the mouth would still be available for the flies. However, I'd be focusing on immunity as my priority, with lashings of Pau D'Arco herb alongside natural antiviral/antibacterial phytonutrients - - see our BioCARE blend - and obviously addressing gut health. 

• Caroline Ingraham, founder of the Zoopharmacognosy field, has reported as a case study that a combo of rosehip shells (crushed, tea-bag cut, or ground) and barleygrass has been effective, fed as self-selection alongside other herbs including comfrey. See the full, fascinating chronical here: https://www.carolineingraham.com/animal-chronicles/horse-chronicles/equine-sarcoids/ 

• I've also personally met a lady whose horse had eye sarcoids, and used the rosehip/barleygrass method. She offered both as self-selection and her mare dove on them! It wasn't cheap - her mare devoured each in vast quantities.It also wasn't quick - it took over a year, but she kept a regular photo diary on her phone and showed me the images. Her mare's sarcoids started to noticeably shrink within a reasonably short time (can't quite remember, think it was a month or two) until they finally - and completely - disappeared. However, like I said, it took over a year, so grit and patience are necessities. We sell rosehip shells and barleygrass as individual items.

• Topically, Manuka honey is thought to help draw the virus out. Equally, as at Nov'20 in chatting with a client, she said she'd heard of an equal mix between flour and fine salt, smothered over the sarcoid. She reported that within 3-weeks the sarcoids had gone, but I'm not able to prove this.

Sources

1. American Journal of Veterinary Research, 62(5), 741-744, 2001. Editor's Note: No research has suggested any risk of sarcoids from housing horses with cattle or on land previously inhabited by cattle.
2. MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Institute of Infection, Inflammation and Immunity, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Bearsden Road, Glasgow, Scotland, G61 1QH, United Kingdom
3. Division of Life Sciences, University College, London, 5 University Street, London, WC1E 6JF, United Kingdom Veterinary Research 2012, 43:81 doi:10.1186/1297-9716-43-81 http://www.veterinaryresearch.org/content/43/1/81 © 2012 Finlay et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.