Each year at the British Equine Veterinary Association Congress (BEVA), the organization awards prizes to top student presentations in the clinical research portion of the program. The 2007 award winners’ talks were both rooted in orthopedics, and both received the award for their practical relevance to veterinarians.

Low-Field MRI and the Fetlock
Ceri Sherlock, BVetMed (Hon), MRCVS, a large animal resident in the University of Georgia Department of Large Animal Medicine, received an award for her presentation of a study that revealed the usefulness of low-field MRI for diagnosing cartilage injury of the fetlock that doesn’t show up on radiographs. This type of MRI is the lower-cost, portable version, so this study is applicable to the ambulatory practitioner that might be looking into adding this technology to his or her practice.

Sherlock worked with veterinarians at Bell Equine Veterinary Clinic in Mereworth, United Kingdom, and Diergeneeskundig Centrum Noord Nederland, in the Netherlands, to collect case information for the study. She and her colleagues performed MRI on 13 horses under standing sedation to investigate “lameness originating from the fetlock joint that was unexplained on standard radiography,” according to her abstract. They conducted repeat examinations and completed telephone questionnaires with owners and referring veterinarians.

She reported that all 13 horses displayed a variety of signal changes that signified subchondral (cartilage in the bone end) bone damage. Seven of the horses were available for follow-up; four of those horses were sound and three were lame. Sherlock and her co-authors concluded, “Lameness originating from the fetlock joint may be associated with subchondral bone damage in horses of any signalment in the absence of radiographic changes. Low-field MR imaging can be a useful tool in the diagnosis of osteochondral injury