This week the use of ultrasound in the diagnosis of a specific intestinal disorder is explored, using the cat as a clinical model of disease. Results were derived from a paper by Zwingenberger, AL et al. (Ultrasonographic Evaluation of the Muscularis Propria in Cats with Diffuse Small Intestinal Lymphoma or Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 2010 March/April 24(2): pp289-292). If you would like to read this paper in full, please click here. If you are under the impression that veterinary ultrasound is only useful to help diagnose pregnancy in cats, these findings should serve to demonstrate just how adaptable ultrasound can be.                                                              

One of the aims of this paper was to look at the use of ultrasound to differentiate between certain conditions in cats via the thickening of the muscularis propria, a layer of muscle. The results showed that thickening occurred predominantly in cats that had small intestinal lymphoma (T cell) when compared to cats under normal conditions and those suffering with IBD. Furthermore, ultrasonography studies also revealed that this thickening may also be useful to predict disease within the muscle itself. Together with the condition of the lymph nodes, muscular thickening could therefore be used as a ‘biomarker’ of certain gut conditions in cats. In addition, the severity of the lymphoma could also be predicted using these biomarkers.

This paper helps to demonstrate yet another useful function for veterinary ultrasound imaging. Nevertheless, studies still have a long way to go – practitioners would greatly benefit from a system that allows their ultrasound images to be compared to a gut under normal conditions, allowing the type of changes occurring to be more accurately described.

If you are thinking of adopting ultrasonography as a method by which to examine your feline cohorts, take a look at the ‘small animal’ section of our website. We stock a number of veterinary ultrasound machines that may be of interest to you, including black and white scanners and colour doppler scanners, and are always happy to help advise on which machine would be best suited for your needs.