I am off on another topic - bone scan . I could use anyone’s experiences with this procedure. What made you decide to go this route and basically did it answer nagging questions about soundness, behavior, etc. And outcomes.
This horse is handsome & talented but just can’t stay sound which may be the cause of his reactive attitude.
Thank you
The one time I’ve had this suggested it absolutely did shed light on the issue.
Do note that it’s really about telling you where to focus further diagnostics, rather than providing answers all on it’s own. Something will light up, and then you’ll have to use other imaging modalities to figure out WHY that area lit up and what’s going on there.
In my case, the neck lit up, we radiographed and ultrasounded, and that told us there was arthritis and remodeling there, which was causing the symptoms we were seeing.
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I’ve had this done once on my 9 year old Morgan gelding. Just a slight unsoundness that we could not figure out and some other odd symptoms that didn’t really align with anything specific. After numerous vet visits, I decided to go the bone scan route.
His results came back with hocks and splits lit up, and a teeny tiny shadow on his back. Did back x-rays and it turned out that he had kissing spines. Did further testing to make sure this was the issue (it was) and made a treatment plan.
It was expensive and a long haul to get to the clinic, but definitely worth it.
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You will find something with scintigraphy, probably several things. The difficulty lays in what is contributing to the problem you are trying to solve. If price is not a limiting factor it can provide additional information but is as likely to complicate diagnosis as it is to clarify. Good luck!
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I had one a couple years ago. It definitely lights up more than just the problem areas as compensating for pain will cause those areas to light up to. I think you have to go into it knowing you will likely have to still do more diagnostics to narrow down the root problem.
also be sure to ask how long the horse is radioactive for. I know for me, I had to warm my one pregnant client to not come out for the day - she probably would have been fine, but why risk it. I am guessing a horse would give off even more?
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I have had bone scans done on 2 horses. One with a recurrent intermittent hind end lameness, and another on a horse with significant but nonspecific, non-blockable issues. In both cases, there was no discernible cause identified for the lameness on the scan. There were a few places on each where you could say there was increased uptake but none of these areas correlated with the clinical findings or were considered to be significant by the vet. It was a frustrating experience, to be honest. On the bright side, it was non-invasive and both horses fully recovered after time off and supplemental treatments like adequan.
I think its become a bit of a default next step in difficult or complicated lameness cases, where you’ve exhausted exam plus on-farm workup (blocks, xray, ultrasound, etc). It would be great if it would always find the issue, but this was not how mine went. Sometimes it can be very valuable to help narrow down areas to continue your diagnostics, but a bone scan will probably not yield a complete diagnosis on its own.
Best of luck with your horse, I hope yours is a clear-cut and obvious one!
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Similar to others’ experience I had it done on a horse with an injury that presented as a run of the mill SI strain but was not healing as he should have. The scan pinpointed the area where the pain was which allowed them to investigate with ultrasound. It also ruled out several other things - nope not his hocks, meh, maybe the stifle but probably nothing. But the injury lit up like Las Vegas - and US revealed he had torn the fascia off his SI.
So when you have a mystery it can help tell you where to look.
I have had several done, and none of them were helpful. In one case, a soft tissue area lit up and the mare was ultimately diagnosed with cancer - but the lameness cause was never IDed.
I had a full one done on my previous mare 5ish years ago now. It definitely pointed us in the right direction and I would say it was worth it. Mare had a mystery hind end lameness that ended up being caused by a cyst on C6/7 vertebrae. I almost wished we did back/neck x-rays before sending her off, but this definitely gave us the bigger picture. Hope this helps and good luck with your diagnosis.
Thank you all for sharing.
To kwpn1 - how did you take care of the C6/7 vertebrae cyst?
We did a few rounds of shockwave, neck injections, OSPHOS and nearly a year of Dr Green. It works for some, but unfortunately my mare never came 100% sound so she was retired.
