How effective is the use of diagnostic imaging on my dog?

Usually very effective. Nowadays with the advancements and all these equipment, x-ray machines, it's very rare to come across a non-digital x-ray machine. And the real reason I say digital, digital itself is not better, a clear image is a clear image, but digital allows you to darken or lighten an image or focused on a certain area to increase contrast. And it allows you to do so much once the image is taken. Whereas with the old hand tank, x-rays you had one shot, like a negative one, it's not like negative, it is a negative one, like old photography film. You either get it or you don't get it. And if you don't get it, then you got to do it again and again and again. So yeah, a lot of the imaging now has come so far. Ultrasound is very commonplace in practice where when I started practicing 20 years ago, very, very few people that I can think of at all had ultrasound. It was only something that was available in referral centers and things like that. So, imaging has come a long way, that has definitely aided the diagnosis of some of the tougher conditions out there. And if you can diagnose things more accurately, then you can treat things more quickly and more effectively. And it has the potential [inaudible] much better for every patient healthier because of that.

The effectiveness would depend on the quality of the image we get. Some of that could be the technology used. We use very advanced technology here, with newer ultrasound and our digital diagnostic x-rays and images. Digital versus the film, which can be very outdated. It also depends on the pet's position and willingness to cooperate during that procedure to get the best image. We want to do all our procedures with as little stress as possible. If we are stressing a pet out, we might say, okay, we're going to stop for today, and then come back on some calming medication, if that's an option for the pet, or maybe do it in a couple of sessions versus trying to get everything done in one session.

It can be very effective, especially if we have done other testing and we've not found much information out. It can really help us to either rule out certain things or just start looking down a different path.

Diagnostic imaging helps us narrow down the causes of symptoms. There are instances where it provides a clear answer, like if a dog has eaten a toy or if a cat is urinating blood due to bladder stones. In some of our more sad cases, if an older large breed dog comes in limping, it could just be arthritis, but maybe it's not. We have to look for bone cancer, and x-rays are very sensitive for bone cancer. It's very diagnostic, especially if it's farther along in the course of disease. If I don't catch it, then the radiologist will. The same goes with ultrasound. If your dog or cat is vomiting, has abdominal pain, lethargy, and is hiding and not wanting to eat, we do an ultrasound. If the pancreas is mad, you're going to see it. A pancreas that's normal, you're not usually going to see on an ultrasound. When the pancreas is mad, we see it. When the liver is upset, we can see it. If there's a tumor in the spleen, we see that on an ultrasound. We get very definitive answers.