MRI for Equine Foot Lameness: The Sooner the Better
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Study horses undergoing MRI due to acute lameness—beginning within the past 12 weeks—healed better than horses whose lameness had become chronic, said Drew W. Koch, DVM, resident in equine surgery in the Department of Clinical Sciences at Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, in Fort Collins.
He attributed this, in part, to improvements in technology and veterinary skills. “As we’ve started to use MRI more regularly in horses, especially in cases of foot-related lameness, we’ve become more able to directly identify issues, and we’ve felt we could more accurately focus treatment,” Koch said.
Eight Years of MRI Cases
Koch and his fellow researchers examined the veterinary records of 95 horses that presented with recent (acute) or long-term (chronic) lameness in the foot and underwent MRI at either Pioneer Equine Hospital in Oakdale, California, or Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital between 2009 and 2016. Veterinarians had already localized the source of lameness to the foot using diagnostic analgesia (nerve blocks)
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Christa Lesté-Lasserre, MA
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