I'm Marc Koene. I'm a veterinarian from Germany and we have a big clinic in the northern part of Germany, Tierklinik Lüsche – about 100 people, 35 vets. I'm a surgeon; I do sport medicine. We do a lot of work for the Federation. I'm actually the team vet for the German dressage team. I'm an FEI vet. I'm currently working in the Equine Prohibited Substance List group, so I have to get in contact with a lot of drugs.
Well, OSPHOS (clodronate) is a great drug. It's a huge asset for everyone who works in sports medicine. The redosing – I think the patient and the case tells you how to redose. I'm not a big fan of prophylactic use. You always re-evaluate the horse. Once I've diagnosed the horse and it comes back, if I'm confident that's the same problem, then I would maybe use the same treatment but I like to re-diagnose them with local blocks.
Of course sometimes horses come in you treat one thing, and then when they come back they have a different thing because horses are masters of compensation. So when they have a primary problem and they start to compensate and then other things start hurting. Once you start treating one point the next one can show up and say, "Okay, I'm here to be treated as well." That's why there's not really a cook-booking [approach] for treatment. You always have to stay sharp and question your own diagnosis.
I think [clodronate is] a very powerful tool in our hands. I think for equine practitioners, they should be aware that it needs to be in our hands as a really tool of experienced veterinarians.