US university uses PET and CT scanning to diagnose lameness | ||
More than a year ago, UC Davis became the first veterinary hospital in the world to offer equine PET scans. Their veterinarians are continuing to see successes in their discoveries of the diagnostic capabilities of PET. Recently, a chronic lameness in an American Quarter Horse named Bella was finally solved due to the use of PET.
Bella, a 16-year-old American Quarter Horse mare, has historically suffered from chronic hind limb issues. She was previously diagnosed with bilateral osteoarthritis of the lower tarsal joints (hock), but intra-articular medication had failed to significantly improve her lameness on the right hind. Bella had been ridden by two small children for the past three years and is an integral part of their family. Due to the severity of this lameness, however, she could no longer be ridden. Committed to improving Bella’s condition, her family brought her to the UC Davis veterinary hospital.
PET (left), fused PET/CT (center) and CT (right) images of Bella, showing the active bone changes (orange) responsible for Bella’s pain and lameness.
© UC Davis Veterinary Medicine
A team of veterinarians and technicians from the Anesthesia/Critical Patient Care and the Diagnostic Imaging services assisted Bella’s equine veterinarians to perform a PET/CT scan on her under general anesthesia. The PET/CT revealed that the main cause of pain in Bella’s hock was osteoarthritis of the talocalcaneal joint, rather than the degenerative changes in her distal intertarsal and tarsometatarsal joints identified with radiographs and MRI. This joint is rarely affected in horses, and its location and configuration make diagnostic and therapeutic procedures quite challenging. The PET/CT findings explained why the previous treatment had been unsuccessful and suggested that surgical intervention to the distal tarsal joints was not needed. While Bella was still under general anesthesia, a CT guided injection of the talocalcaneal joint was performed. Bella recovered well from the anesthesia following the procedure. Source: UC Davis Veterinary Medicine press release
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© copyright. Equestrian Life. Saturday, 20 April 2024 https://www.equestrianlife.com.au/articles/US-university-uses-PET-and-CT-scanning-to-diagnose-lameness |
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