This is an ominous-looking bladder mass in a bitch: trigonal site, heterogeneous echogenicity and bladder wall invasion are all portents of potential malignancy. Athough a transitional carcinoma looks extremely likely, it would be good to have histological confirmation before making a definitive plan of action. The obvious issue is that percutaneous needle biopsy carries some … Continue reading
This is a 5 month-old cat with recurrent haematuria. The bladder: The bladder is almost empty apart from a collection of calculi up to 4mm diameter. And this is very suspicious in a young cat. The vessels at the porta hepatis are interesting, although the portal vein and its tributaries are arranged normally the whole … Continue reading
This is a slightly unusual sonographic situation -a missing swab in the count up after abdominal surgery. Not quite the same as the usual scenario where swabs weren’t counted and the symptomatic patient then presents for imaging some months later. In this dog, 2 days post-op there is very little in the way of reaction … Continue reading
The last cases of Angiostrongylosis we saw in the frozen north (West Yorkshire) were following the very mild winters of the mid-noughties. So it may be no coincidence that a resurgence happens now. This is a dog from earlier in the week with positive A. vasorum serology. The pulmonary hypertension is fairly standard: This pulmonary … Continue reading
Renal infarcts in cats are common incidental findings on abdominal ultrasonography in cats. Hickey and others (2014) reviewed disease associations in cats with renal infarcts diagnosed on ultrasonography or necropsy. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24528199 A significant association with cardiomyopathy was observed. However, that doesn’t explain for me why so many cats have apparent infarcts. Certainly in our population … Continue reading
This is a common and important issue. Contrary to what one might think, the evidence from human medicine is that coagulation screening tests are unnecessary prior to general surgery unless there is a history of coagulopathy or other predisposition. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3190281 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=eika+havig To quote the latter: ‘The study demonstrated complete lack of correlation between the preoperative … Continue reading
Interesting cases from this week, happily doing well at present. The first, a cat with acute vomiting and profound malaise: The first two seconds of the examination. Don’t want to jump to any conclusions but a stomach dilated to that extent raises the prospect of mechanical or functional GI obstruction. And there’s some ‘stuff’ in … Continue reading
I think there’s little doubt that using the only licensed product as first-line therapy is the way to go. However, there are some dogs whose control isn’t great on Caninsulin and the most common issue in my experience is insufficient duration of effect with twice daily dosing. For some time my second-line option in this … Continue reading
Infective endocarditis is a challenge both diagnostically and therapeutically. Because the heart valves are not readily accessible for sampling and clinical signs/clinical pathology are highly variable, many of the cases which form the published literature on the subject were confirmed post mortem. Many of those reported in the largest case series by Sykes et al. … Continue reading
In my experience these can be outwardly quite deceptive. The degree of abdominal distention may not be pronounced. This patient presented as an ‘acute abdomen’ with haematemesis. On ultrasonography, the stomach was mildly dilated with fluid but normally-positioned and not gas-filled. Whereas dogs with small intestinal obstruction due to foreign bodies, for example, the stomach … Continue reading
