Ultrasound

Real-Time Ultrasound Imagine For Accurate Veterinary Diagnostics

Ultrasound imaging is a veterinary diagnostic tool that uses high frequency sound waves to produce real-time images of your pet’s internal systems. Painless and non-invasive, it offers a high degree of clarity when examining your critter companion’s organ, muscle, and bone functions. Often used in conjunction with digital X-rays, ultrasound technology aids our veterinarians in diagnosing and treating your feline or canine family member.

Abdominal Ultrasound

Abdominal ultrasound simplifies the diagnoses of internal disease by providing veterinarians with a clear view inside the patient’s stomach, liver, kidneys, and other internal organs. The real-time capabilities of ultrasound technology allow our veterinarians to diagnose and assess a variety of veterinary conditions including:

• Liver disease
• Kidney disease
• Urinary bladder disease or kidney stones
• Pregnancy
• Enlarged lymph nodes and cancer
• Abdominal masses, fluid, and foreign material
• Pancreatitis and inflammatory bowel disease

Should a mass be discovered during an ultrasound, the board-certified specialist will enlist the help of our veterinarians and certified staff to use anesthesia during the remainder of the ultrasound. This ensures our patient is comfortably asleep while we pass an ultrasound-guided needle directly into the mass. This is done to collect (or aspirate) a small tissue sample, which will be used to properly identify the mass. This option is infinitely less invasive than a surgical procedure that would otherwise be required to collect this kind of diagnostic tissue sample.

Cardiac Ultrasound

Cardiac ultrasound, also known as echocardiogram or ECHO, can be especially useful when detecting heart problems. Abnormalities in the motion of the heart valves, blood flow through the heart, chamber size, and contractions of the heart muscle can be assessed for abnormalities with a high degree of accuracy. Assessing the heart as it beats is crucial for treating and diagnosing specific heart diseases.

Cardiac ultrasound is used to diagnose and identify:

• Cardiac birth defects
• Diseases of the heart valves
• Heart muscle diseases (cardiomyopathy)
• Fluid around the heart (pericardial effusion)
• Cardiac tumors
• Certain types of heartworm infections

To schedule a consultation or to learn more about our ultrasound services, call us at (608) 288-7838.