Equine URT Radiography Flashcards
What are some considerations for radiography of the equine head?
- Equine head can be imaged with most radiography equipment
- Horizontal beam - safety precautions
- Use of plate holders, lead gloves and gowns
- Use inverse square law - if restraining horse, stand as far away as possible
- Sedation to reduce head movement
- Head support
- Rope head collars to minimise artefacts
- Can use grid for laterolateral and DV views
- Markers for left / right and to mark position on horse
What views can you use to radiograph the equine URT?
- Lateral (latero-lateral) views used most frequently
- 30o obliques used for dental arcades
- Dorsoventral, ventrodorsal, lesion orientated obliques and intraoral views also possible
What regions can be imaged for equine URT?
- Cranium
- Sinuses
- Teeth
- Guttural pouch
- Pharynx and larynx
What are oblique views used for?
- Oblique views used to image the tooth roots
- Lateral views superimpose the left and right dental arcades over each other
- 30o obliques of the mandible or maxilla separate the two arcades
Label where the arrows are on this equine skull and also label the mandible and facial crest
What might you be able to identify with radiography of the cranium?
- Fractures - changes in alignment, gas within soft tissues, fluid within sinuses
- Suturitis - benign bony proliferation
- Osteomyelitis - bone lysis and aggressive periosteal new bone
- Cysts / neoplasia- can be benign and lytic, or aggressive lesions
Label the numbers here of this normal radiograph of a horses head
1 nasoincisive notch
2 nasal bone
3 frontal bone
4 orbit and ethmoturbinates
5 infraorbital canal
6 frontal sinus
7 rostral maxilllary sinus
8 caudal maxillary sinus
How do sinuses differ in radiographs with age?
•Age differences - young horse has a long reserve crown of the teeth projecting into sinus. Old horse has a short reserve crown, most of sinus is visible.
What are standard radiographic views of the sinuses?
•lateral and VD
What abnormalities can radiographs of sinuses show?
- Standard radiographic views: lateral and VD
- Radiography with the horse standing
- produces horizontal fluid lines on lateral view
- Have head vertical
- VD useful to determine side of lesion
- Normal sinuses are gas filled and radiopaque
- Changes in shape - facial distortion with sinus cysts and fractures, lysis and new bone with infection or neoplasia
- Changes in radiopacity - fluid lines from blood or pus, soft tissue masses
Label the numbers
1 nasoincisive notch
2 frontal sinus
3 orbit
4 ethmoturbinate
5 infraorbital canal
6 septum between rostral and caudal maxillary sinuses
7 teeth
What views can you take when radiographing the dental arcades?
- Lateral
- VD
- 30o obliques
- Intraoral views
- Dentine is most radiopaque tissue in body - requires higher radiographic exposure
What radiographic changes can you see with dental disease?
- Abnormal conformation (brachygnathia, prognathia)
- Extra or missing teeth
- Fractures
- Infection
- Dentigerous cysts
What radiographic changes with the dental arcades are there with apical infection?
- ‘Halo’ formation - bone lysis and endosteitis
- Cementosis
- Discharging sinus tracts through bone
- Coral formation (metaplastic calcification)
What does the guttural pouch normally look like on radiograph?
What is a standard view for GP and pharyngeal region?
- Normal findings - see guttural pouch and pharynx lectures
- Guttural pouch normally air filled
- Standard view is lateromedial
- Ventrodorsal or dorsoventral views may be used
Label the image here of a radiograph of the GP and pharyngeal region
Label the following image of a radiograph of the GP and pharyngeal region
