Trips out of town for a pet ultrasound — to screen for potential diseases or determine course of treatment in emergencies — were needed so frequently, that local veterinarians decided to make a change.
“It was to the point where we would say, ‘It would be so nice to do an ultrasound on this one, and this one, and this one,’” said Dr. Melody Nicholson, veterinarian at Rainy River Veterinary Hospital. “So we finally said, we need this to better serve our community.”
This month, Rainy River Veterinary Hospital staff installed and were trained in on a digital pet ultrasound machine and digital X-ray equipment, upgraded from analog.
The ultrasound installation saves clients a 300-mile trip — pets were most often referred to the Twin Cities for screenings. On a daily basis, the equipment helps give a picture of the health concern without having to surgically inspect the problem, according to Dr. Wayne Hasbargen, veterinarian at Rainy River Veterinary Hospital.
“On the daily diagnostics, not only will it pay for itself, but that’s where the need is,” he said. “Many times, we’d like to see the organ without surgically having to open up the animal. So you don’t have to go in and do a surgery where you don’t think you need to.”
The medical equipment can assess various parts of the body, from the heart to the abdominal organs, he said. The ultrasound helps veterinarians not only see what the problem is, but where it is, Nicholson said. This is especially crucial in emergency cases, she added, or in cases of potentially life-threatening conditions.
“If a dog was hit by a car, before, we could say there is fluid in the tissue. Now, we can actually see where the bleeding is and even see which organ is in trouble,” Nicholson explained.
The equipment is the same as an ultrasound machine for humans — with some of the settings adapted for use with animals, she said. The equipment is a step between an X-ray and an MRI, and could help diagnose cancers in the liver, stones in the bladder, gall bladder blockage, and other health problems. While an X-ray gives a “stacked” view of internal images, the ultrasound image is like taking a slice out and looking at various sides of it, Nicholson explained.
Because the equipment is digital, veterinarians can consult with other medical experts by transmitting the images to board certified ultrasonographers, who specialize in reading ultrasound images.
Hasbargen added that he had an ultrasound machine about 20 years ago, but back then, the machine did not capture images — veterinarians had to write down what they observed, the machine was not user-friendly, and the cost was high.
“The technology, in my opinion, wasn’t enough for the price,” he said, adding that he had been paying attention to the technology upgrades in ultrasounds for the past few years. The clinic’s new “doppler-capable” ultrasound machine for small animals was finally worth the cost, he said.
The equipment could potentially save pets’ lives, Hasbargen said, and help decide whether surgery is an appropriate course instead of playing the waiting game.
“Many times, we did exploratories (surgery to get an internal view) because of the danger of waiting to find out,” Hasbargen said. “Instead of procrastinating until we see more symptoms that could be life-threatening, we’re going in with more knowledge.”
Digital X-ray
The upgrade to digital X-rays is also beneficial to pets’ health, the veterinarians said.
The advantages of the upgraded X-ray machine to digital are better-quality images, finer detail, and easier conferring with an online consultant through a radiology consulting service, Hasbargen said. This not only saves time, but offers better care, he said.
Hasbargen said he’d been considering switching to digital X-rays for the past 15 years, and now, the technology is helpful enough for the price of the equipment, he said.
“They’re comparatively a lot cheaper than they used to be, and you get more for your money,” Hasbargen said.
Overall, the equipment is more effective and pets have less exposure to radiation, said the hospital’s veterinary technician Angelica Moffenbier.
“We’ll be more effective and there will be less radiation exposure to animals because we have the technology to do it faster,” Moffenbier said.
Radiation exposure will be further cut back by saving on retakes of X-rays because of the precise, detailed digital images, Hasbargen added.
The detail of the images can be seen by lightening or darkening the exposure, Nicholson added.
“The beauty of the images, in my mind, is the wonderful thing,” Nicholson said. “We have the ability to enhance the image by changing the contrast. We can digitally draw in lines, measure angles, we can look at a negative of the image, which sometimes makes things stand out better.”
Both the ultrasound and digital X-ray equipment are so new to the community that it will take some time for people to become aware of the benefits of them, the veterinarians said.
“They’ve been so used to not having it,” Hasbargen said. “There were no doppler-capable ultrasounds capable of small-animal diagnostics from here to at least Bemidji, if not the Twin Cities.”
Nicholson said they will use the ultrasound equipment more at daily appointments as people “become aware that we have it and the many things we can do with it.”
“Even with human medicine, it’s used for much more nowadays,” she said. “The nicest thing is, now you don’t have to travel out of town for your pet’s ultrasound. We can do the scan here.”
