This is one of those issues. Working in primary care practice I never really understood why people prescribed beta-blockers to cats with HCM. However, writing referral reports is good discipline: it forces you to think a bit more about what you’re suggesting. Now, I’m sure it’s complicated! Presumably, it’s widely used in pre-clinical cases because … Continue reading
This is a very niche observation but something that I’ve not seen described elsewhere. In cats without any evidence of gastrointestinal disease there is often an asymmetrical thickening of the small intestinal mucosa at the jejuno-ileal junction. This is located between 1.5 – 4.0cm proximal to the ileo-caeco-colic junction. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20123064781 Before I realised that this … Continue reading
Having started our own dog on Librela recently I’m pretty impressed that she seems to cope better with her dodgy joints. We still seem to be a bit short on objective data: a pubmed search turns up no actual evidence. However, It’s interesting and potentially widely-applicable that bedinvetmab may also be effective in a lot … Continue reading
It’s been a while since my erstwhile mentor Dr Bob O’Brien published this nice article: Vet Radiol Ultrasound Jul-Aug 1998;39(4):354-6Urinary bladder mural hemorrhage associated with systemic bleeding disorders in three dogsR T O’Brien, E F Wood https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9710141/ …and ultrasound technology has moved on a bit in the meantime. This is a recent case of the … Continue reading
Hot off the JSAP press we have just been reading the new and exciting: J Small Anim Pract 2021 Mar;62(3):178-186Diagnostic accuracy of a lung ultrasound protocol (Vet BLUE) for detection of pleural fluid, pneumothorax and lung pathology in dogs and catsL Cole, M Pivetta, K Humm https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsap.13271 ‘Results: When using CT as the reference standard, … Continue reading
This is a useful thing to be able to do. If you can find the ICCJ then that gives you a rock solid reference point: you can then identify the ileum, proximal colon and caecum with complete confidence. In pathological cases it’s not always easy to distinguish small and large bowel simply on inspection of … Continue reading
Ultrasound elastography, or elastosonography, is increasingly available on high-end ultrasound machines;. At the most basic level USE gives an indication of tissue stiffness. This may be either in response to mechanical pressure (strain imaging) or to ultrasound-generated compression (shear wave elastography). Mechanical pressure in strain imaging is exerted externally (manually) or by internal changes due … Continue reading
I don’t know about you guys but I think I left vet school with the distinct impression that too much diuretic can lead to reduced arterial pressure and thus reduced renal perfusion and azotaemia. This simple picture does seem to have now been superseded. I like this up-to-date summary from the human literature: Change in … Continue reading
It pays to keep this situation under constant review. The more evidence emerges, the more there is to think about. The ACE inhibitor evidence in summary: IMPROVE study (1995): short term effects of enalapril over 21 days in heterogeneous group of dogs with CHF; conclusions rely quite heavily on subjective criteria. More benefit in DCM … Continue reading
It’s been an interesting empirical observation that acute haemorrhagic diarrhoea syndrome (haemorrhagic gastroenteritis) is commonest in small breed dogs susceptible to pancreatitis. A related phenomenon is the prevalence of gastrointestinal episodes in dogs with diabetes mellitus. ‘ In the light of the current advance in understanding the basis of canine hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the well-recognized association … Continue reading
