Pleasing 4 Pets

A medical technique which has traditionally been used to detect illness and disease in humans is now being used to uncover medical problems in pet in South Wales.

The Bridge Veterinary Group in Caerphilly has the use of a mobile MRI scanner one a month.

The MRI scans are able to produce in depth images of parts of an animal’s body, cost somewhere in the region of £1,000 per scan and take around 40 minutes to complete.

Graham Blow, a partner at the Bridge Veterinary Group revealed that the scans had made a huge difference in the group’s ability to diagnose medical problems in pets.

He said:-

“We had a dog in there with severe neck pain and we had done tests but what was diagnosed probably wouldn’t have been possible without MRI.

Sometimes you might look and see something is inoperable and you wouldn’t put the animal through an operation. It can alleviate unnecessary suffering in that case.”

Before now, any domestic pet needing an MRI scan would have been directed to other veterinary surgeries in England.

Now vets throughout South Wales will be able to send poorly pets to be scanned at Bridge Surgeries car park where the mobile scanner is available once a month.

The scanners have been used previously in many safari parks and zoos, and have helped to diagnose illnesses in animals such as gorillas, lions and even sharks.