Pete the Vet: How vets use technology to diagnose illness in pets

Diagnostic imaging for pets has also improved dramatically in recent decades
Pete the Vet: How vets use technology to diagnose illness in pets

When compared to human medical services, vet clinics are often more like mini-hospitals than GP services.

Animals cannot tell us how they are feeling. When they are unwell, it can be difficult to work out what’s wrong with them. Do they have a headache? Do they feel dizzy? Do they feel pain somewhere in their body? 

These questions cannot be answered. Vets need to depend on the observations of a pet’s owner, along with a careful physical examination of the animal to find out what’s going on. Sometimes this is enough to make a diagnosis, but often more evidence is needed before a conclusion can be reached. This means extra investigations, often using two main areas: laboratory tests (such as blood and urine samples) and diagnostic imaging (X-rays, ultrasound and advanced scans).

Many pet owners don’t realise that their local vet is able to carry out this type of advanced testing, and it’s only due to recent technological advances that this has become possible. When compared to human medical services, vet clinics are often more like mini-hospitals than GP services.

The practice laboratory is an area that has developed rapidly in the last 20 years, with many vet clinics now owning automated blood processing equipment. Your local vet will often now be able to tell you within minutes if your pet has issues such as liver, kidney or pancreatic disease. 

For more complex tests, external professional laboratories are still needed, with couriers collecting samples and results coming back a few days later. But the on-the-spot tests mean that many pets can be given far more prompt and effective specific treatment than in the past.

Diagnostic imaging for pets has also improved dramatically in recent decades, just as it has in the human medical world. 30 years ago, vets were limited to using X-ray films, which were placed on light-boxes to be viewed. A complex and time-consuming system of film processing was used, with dark rooms and tanks of strong chemicals, identical to the way that photographs used to be made.

Now the digital world has taken over, just as it has in photography and human medical diagnostic imaging. The basic principle is that instead of a physical film being placed underneath an animal inside a plastic cassette, a re-usable plate containing electronic sensors is used. This is exposed to X-rays that have passed through the animal from the X-ray generator, in just the same way as the old X-ray film used to be. High-tech computer technology is used to extract an image from the re-usable plate. Vets then view the X-ray images on a computer screen.

The process is cleaner, quicker and more effective than the old way. Vets can now look at X-ray images of pets within seconds, and if the images are not good enough, they can rapidly repeat them.

As well as digital X-rays, there’s now a range of other types of diagnostic imaging.

Ultrasound is the most widely available: most vet clinics now have access to ultrasound machines, for farm and horse work, as well as for pets. Most people are familiar with ultrasound being used to take scans of pregnant women: the first sighting that we have of our children is as a grainy black and white image on an ultrasound machine. 

In the veterinary world, ultrasound is also used for pregnancy diagnosis, but it has a far wider value in general diagnostic work. From gall bladder stones to small tumours in the intestines, from lumpy spleens to poorly contracting hearts, an ultrasound investigation has become the key to diagnosing many different illnesses. 

The skill of the person carrying out the ultrasound is important: while many vets can carry out basic scans to identify major problems, referral to a vet with a particular interest in ultrasound, and ideally extra qualifications, may often be suggested when looking for subtle changes. Such vets may visit local vet clinics, or they may be based at specialist vet clinics which offer more advanced services to pets.

These specialist vet clinics may also have access to even more high-tech diagnostic imaging facilities, such as CT and MRI scans, which generate detailed three-dimensional views of the insides of pets’ bodies. 

For some illnesses, such as brain tumours, these scans are the only way that a diagnosis can be confirmed, and for many conditions, they are essential when devising a treatment plan. For example, if a paralysed dog has been diagnosed with a slipped disc, major spinal surgery may be needed to allow them to walk again. The surgeon needs to know in advance precisely which disc has slipped, and which surgical approach is the best way to remove it. 

My own cat developed a peculiar head tilt, and it was only via a CT scan that a diagnosis could be made and corrective surgery planned (she had a rare type of polyp growing inside her middle ear, and once this was removed, she made a full recovery).

The new advanced laboratory testing and diagnostic imaging has raised the level of diagnostic accuracy at vet clinics across Ireland, and Irish pets are reaping the rewards with longer, healthier lives. 

There is one catch: this high end technology is not cheap. Vet clinics need to invest tens of thousands of euros to obtain the best and latest laboratory and diagnostic imaging equipment. The resulting loans need to be repaid, and that’s why vet costs often seem to be higher than in the past. Vets are not being paid more, but they are spending more on the equipment they need to do their job well.

The answer? Get your pet insured. It’s the most effective way to plan for your pet having the high-tech investigations and treatments that they may need one day.

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