Diagnostic Services
Digital Radiology
Radiographs are one of the most important diagnostic tools in veterinary medicine. They allow us to view the shape, size, and location of organs inside your pet's body. Radiographs are extremely helpful for diagnosing and monitoring many medical and surgical conditions. X-rays are useful for examining your pet's bones, lungs, heart, abdomen, oral cavity, and other areas of the body. An x-ray can detect a fractured bone, tumor, or heart problem and locate an obstruction or foreign body in your pet's stomach or intestine.
With the availability of digital radiography, x-rays have become far more powerful and useful than ever before. This means that we can quickly take highly detailed radiographs, manipulate them to gain a better view of your pet's bones and internal organs, and then display them on a computer for you to see.
Because we believe that pet owners throughout the Auburn and Candia area deserve the best possible care, we have invested in a state-of-the-art, high-quality digital veterinary x-ray machine. Now we are able to diagnose a very wide range of medical conditions with more speed and accuracy than ever before.
The Advantages of Digital Radiology
- Digital x-rays can be saved to a disk and given to you as part of your pet's home medical record.
- Images can be quickly shared via email to specialists when a second opinion or additional diagnosis is needed.
- Your pet's time on the x-ray table is reduced because fewer images need to be taken.
- Digital x-rays eliminate the need to use toxic chemicals in the film development process, decreasing the risk of exposure to our staff and the environment.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is a pain-free, totally non-invasive technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to produce a real-time image of your pet's internal organs. Often considered more exact than radiographs (x-rays), ultrasound provides a movie of what is happening inside your pet's body. Additionally, unlike x-rays, diagnostic ultrasound does not use harmful ionizing radiation and there is no known health risk associated with its use.
Ultrasound is particularly useful in viewing your pet's abdominal organs and evaluating heart functions. Abdominal ultrasound allows us to fully examine your pet's liver, gallbladder, spleen, adrenal glands, pancreas, kidneys, urinary bladder, and parts of the stomach and intestines. Ultrasound also works well in conjunction with other diagnostic tools and a wide range of diagnostic procedures. For example, a radiograph of your pet's abdomen may show enlargement of the liver but does not tell us why it is enlarged. An ultrasound allows us to see the liver's structure in greater detail and identify specific lesions or masses.
Using the ultrasound image as a guide, the Tower Hill Animal Hospital medical team can obtain biopsies without major surgery and your pet can often go home the same day. Ultrasounds are typically not stressful for your pet and take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to perform.
Tower Hill Animal Hospital's Laboratory
Performing preventative medicine as well as diagnosing emergent internal health issues requires the ability to perform a wide range of laboratory tests on blood, urine, feces, and biopsied tissue. Without timely access to precise laboratory test results — blood testing, biopsies, microscopic examinations, bacterial culture sensitivity, and more — it is difficult to make an accurate diagnosis or assessment of your pet's health.
Tower Hill Animal Hospital offers complete laboratory testing services for your pet. In many cases, our sophisticated instruments and diagnostic capabilities provide us with test results within minutes.
Laboratory testing allows Dr. Bright to obtain additional information to assess your pet's overall systemic health without the need for invasive and expensive procedures. This is why we maintain an advanced in-house laboratory and regularly perform tests during your pet's wellness exams or when we suspect your pet may have a health issue.
For example, diagnostic testing can detect heartworm disease, Lyme disease, infections, feline leukemia, intestinal parasites, urinary tract infections, and many additional diseases and conditions that can go unnoticed in their early stages. Early blood testing can show evidence of disease such as diabetes, changes in liver or kidney function, or simply provide a baseline for future reference. Diagnostic testing is also included in pre-anesthetic screenings prior to dental or surgical procedures that require general anesthesia. Annual wellness blood and urine tests, along with other diagnostics, assist us in the early detection of diseases and health conditions.