|
|
Columns::December 2, 2002
$6.3 million gift to Georgia Museum of Art honors painter
$3 million in new grants, contracts will support research on weapons of mass destruction
Seminar focuses on UGA’s role in building ‘emergency-response community’
Fall enrollment up at UGA and Gwinnett University Center
What all the buzz is about
Professor’s childhood interest in botany blossoms into career in plant pathology
Fanning Institute appoints associate director
Kudos
The bottom line
Military briefing
Campus News
 |
| Neurologist Marc Kent (left) and MRI technician Debbie Eliopulis (right) prepare for a MRI scan, while technician Charlie Williams (center) monitors the anesthetized patient. In cases where CT scans and X-rays aren’t definitive enough, MRI is the imaging modality of choice. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
MRI now available for veterinary patients
By Dot Sparer
dsparer@vet.uga.edu
Magnetic resonance imaging, the gold standard for medical imaging of human patients, is now available to animals at the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Until now, imaging has been done in the hospital with radiography, ultrasonography, nuclear scintigraphy and a state-of-
 |
| This patient, a Great Dane, had been having problems walking. MRI usually shows more detail than other methods of imaging. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
the-art CT scanner, “but MRI takes imaging of dogs and cats one step further,” says Douglas Allen, hospital director. “We can do a better job of evaluating neurological problems using MRI, as opposed to other imaging modalities. It will dramatically improve our ability to diagnose and treat brain lesions and spine lesions, as well as some orthopedic injuries.”
MRI usually shows more detail than other methods of imaging.
“With MRI we will be able to see subtle distinctions and be able to identify tumors that may not show up on CT images,” says neurologist Marc Kent. “You can see everything better: inflammatory disease, infections and cancers. MRI allows us to image the brain stem, which is not adequately imaged by CT scans, as well as inflammations which sometimes don’t show on a CT scan.”
In cases where CT scans and X-rays aren’t definitive enough, MRI is the imaging modality of choice.
“MRI will give us more sophisticated imaging to evaluate difficult cases, especially those involving neurological diseases,” says Allen. “It can show neurologists the size and location of a brain tumor, for example.”
A mobile MRI unit will park outside the hospital for half a day once a week. The unit, worth well over a million dollars, is owned and operated by Alliance Imaging.
“We look at the image in different planes—from a front view, a side view and a top view,” Kent explains. “So in a sense you see the image in 3-D, but it’s really a series of two-dimensional images.” The resulting picture is captured digitally and stored on X-ray film.
Veterinarians and technicians from the college anesthetize the patients and monitor them during the procedure, using special equipment that contains no metal.
Because the magnet in the MRI is so powerful, nothing metallic can be allowed in or around the mobile unit.
“MRI adds one more advanced, non-invasive imaging modality to our hospital,” says Kent. “It will allow us to offer veterinarians, clients and their pets a higher standard of care and puts the UGA veterinary hospital at the forefront of veterinary medicine.”
|
|
|
|
|
