A question for you. Free fluid appears hypoechoic (dark) on ultrasound. Normal abdominal fat is relatively hypoechoic too. Why then, when abdominal fat becomes oedematous does it become hyperechoic (brighter)? https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/13/1/432 This appears to be the answer. It’s all about interfaces -in this case on a microscopic scale. ‘Both pure water and fat appeared to … Continue reading
I’m not suggesting that ultrasound should necessarily be your imaging modality of choice when suspecting discospondylitis; but, as always, these cases don’t always arrive with a label. The point is that if one is triage-ing a febrile or paraplegic patient with ultrasound then it’s good to extract maximum information whilst one has the chance. It’s … Continue reading
That’s never the kind of thing you like to see really. First impression is that this looks very likely to be a mesenteric torsion in this Akita with acute abdomen. I wrote a blog post about sonographic features of mesenteric torsions a while back: Intestinal volvulus in a German Shepherd Dog I find colonic and … Continue reading
Some things just never make it into textbooks! Or at least it’s difficult to find a specific account of an actual case. This is a 4 y.o. dog who lives in a house where a sock went missing and presented after a few days vomiting. He has no history of illness of prior gastrointestinal signs. … Continue reading
I like this new article on lung ultrasound: J Vet Intern Med 2024 Jan-Feb;38(1):336-345Lung ultrasound score in dogs and cats: A reliability studyStefano Oricco, Daniele Medico, Ilaria Tommasi, Richard Marcello Bini, Roberto Rabozzi https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jvim.16956 Obviously, lung ultrasound has been a fast-evolving area in recent years with new ideas coming and sometimes going again! This particular … Continue reading
This Pug presented semi-recumbent and febrile with severe abdominal pain. On abdominal ultrasound, the dominant pattern of change involved hyperechoic peri-renal retroperitoneal fat on the left side and small pockets of peri-renal and peri-ureteral effusion. The left kidney was diffusely hyperechoic with reduced cortico-medullary distinction but of unremarkable overall size and shape. Neither renal pelvis … Continue reading
And the same in video: This is a useful finding: it implies airway exudate. If you see this in a coughing patient and transthoracic lung ultrasound is unremarkable, there is likely significant airway disease. Differential diagnoses associated with this might include, for example, eosinophilic bronchopneumopathy, infectious tracheo-bronchitis, bleeding due to coagulopathy, bronchial foreign body. Also … Continue reading
Linear FBs are sometimes difficult to visualise convincingly: even when everything is plicated to hell. OK, now see what happens if you fan the probe over the suspect loop of gut… …like magic! There it is. One more still from the same cat. We know the linear FB is there: … Continue reading
In all images here cranial is to left of image. I’ve listened to two authoritative presentations on shunts by specialist surgeons in the last month. To paraphrase, both of them said they recommend CT angio and find ultrasound too user-dependent and too unreliable. My impression is that there’s a general drift in this direction. I … Continue reading
My impression, from a UK veterinary perspective, is that lung ultrasound (LUS) gets variable press. Specifically, most specialist cardiologists don’t much care for it. It’s useful to understand why this is. It’s no coincidence that LUS was discovered and developed primarily by human acute care physicians in intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency departments. Looking … Continue reading
