Ultrasonography is surprisingly good as a rapid, readily available imaging modality for screening potential pneumothorax patients. Since cardiogenic pulmonary oedema, pulmonary thromboemboli, pneumonia, pleural effusions and intrathoracic neoplasia can also be detected it’s a powerful tool. The technique can be mastered by anyone with a few minutes to spare. Apply a micro-convex probe to the … Continue reading
Further to my last post re ureters, this is just a little video clip of an ectopic ureter running within the bladder wall at the level of the bladder neck. The patient is a young female Labrador… Continue reading
Finally, some much-needed evidence on which to base congestive heart failure treatment in cats. Presented at ECVIM 2015 by Rachel James: a prospective, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 20 cats with CHF due to cardiomyopathy. Concurrently treated with furosemide, an ACE inhibitor +/- clopidogrel. The bare bones of the outcome are that survival at 15 … Continue reading
This is just one of those things that tells you that someone up there has a sense of humour. The day after the aforementioned dog with emphysematous cystitis I was asked to look at a somewhat elderly Border Terrier with a history of well-controlled pituitary-dependent hyperadrencorticism but now presenting with acute abdominal pain and collapse. … Continue reading
This was an interesting image to come across when scanning the abdomen of a vomiting 11 y.o. male Labrador. There is obviously a fluid-filled bladder. In this case, it also contains numerous echogenic particles creating a ‘snowstorm’ effect. However, the normal curved bladder profile is transected by a linear demarcation such that the dorsal part … Continue reading
Loud murmurs with thrills in young animals don’t, on the face of it, sound good. Certainly in aortic stenosis, pulmonic stenosis and PDAs louder murmurs are usually associated with more severe disease. This kitten is about 10 weeks old and has the most dramatic murmur with an obvious thrill palpable over much of the right … Continue reading
A cardiology snippet. This is a recently published article from human medicine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4505792/ Interesting. Ace inhibitor use decreased left ventricular mass and function without any increase in adverse cardiac events. That’s rather counter to the historical story that ACEi might be contraindicated in … Continue reading
This isn’t rocket science but nice pics all the same. From a young dog with recurrent UTIs whom we screened for ectopic ureters. ….they weren’t ectopic. The jet from the right ureter enters obliquely from below and the left one is firing from above. Although one of the best texts does say that ‘..ureters can’t … Continue reading
This is the challenging case of a 5 y.o. domestic short-haired cat suffering daily seizures. To cut a long story short his cholesterol levels are 10 times the top end of normal for no apparent reason -blood results are otherwise unremarkable. From an ultrasonographic point of view this is his abdominal aorta (as seen from … Continue reading
There’s very little in the published literature about scanning the caecum in small animals -which is surprising since it is often encountered during abdominal examinations. Although dogs often have more gas in their colons and caeca, which sometimes makes it more difficult to make out, the canine caecum is also quite an elongated structure (usually … Continue reading
