…sses of injury, cholestasis, altered function or blood flow) are derived from all screening clinical pathologic tests – the hemogram, biochemical profile, and urinalysis – as outlined below. Of course, history, signalment, clinical signs and results of other diagnostic testing (ultrasound examination, abdominal radiographs) all help consolidate evidence for liver disease. Results from all this testing then dictate further procedures (…
Laboratory detection Read More »
…ver disease requires the interpretation of clinical pathology data reflecting the state of the liver. This data comes from results of chemistry testing, but also hemogram and urinalysis results (i.e. don’t look at chemistry results in isolation to interpret results of liver tests) – all of this data provides clues as to the underlying presence of liver disease allowing for its laboratory detection. Essentially from these test res…
…ecrosis, increased vascular permeability, and perivascular hemorrhage and edema. The developing vasculitis is accompanied by thrombocytopenia and variable activation of the coagulation mechanism. Early signs may include petechial and ecchymotic hemorrhages of the skin and mucous membranes, retinal hemorrhage, epistaxis, melena, and hematuria. Severely affected individuals may develop DIC. The most useful test for diagnosing RMSF is serologic test…
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…ts thrombin more than FXa). In 2019, a review of the literature by the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical care resulted in the consensus recommendation that therapy with unfractionated heparin in dogs should be monitored with anti-Xa activity (Sharp et al 2019). Guidelines for discontinuation of anticoagulant therapy are also provided (Brainard et al 2019). Method of measurement APTT-based testing: This can only be done for un…
Iron panels consist of serum iron, total iron binding capacity (TIBC, an indirect measurement of transferrin) and percentage saturation of transferrin measurement. Below is a table on guidelines for interpretation of this test panel. Interpretation of common changes in iron panels Iron TIBC % saturation transferrin Disorders ↓ N ↓ Any cause of low iron. Most common causes are transient variation and inflammatory disease. May be seen with or…
…re. With storage for 72 hours, the drop at 4ºC was greater than at room temperature (7% versus 3-6% at 48 hours and 8-9% versus 2-4% at 72 hours). Very high values (>60 ug/dL) were still abnormal after 10 days of storage at either temperature (Hillstrom et al 2010). SAA concentrations are stable frozen (-20ºC), thus it is recommended that for storage >24 hours, the samples should be frozen and shipped ensuring that they remain frozen. If fr…
…oncentration of red blood cells, expressed in millions/µL of whole blood. While red blood cell counts can be performed by manual techniques, such as a hemocytometer, these are time-consuming and inaccurate. We do, however, use them for counting RBC in fluids with low cell counts, such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Automated counts are most commonly performed using electronic impedance or laser light scattering (flow cytometry). The latter is the…
…ochemical changes that could explain the death of the animal. Numerous studies have been done to determine what tests can be done on ocular fluids post-mortem and the stability of the analytes (since we cannot always know when the animal has died). Â Results for many analytes will change markedly after death, affecting result interpretation, so this has to be taken into account when testing ocular fluids. For more on this, see common artifact…
…ulins and albumin:globulin ratio (A:G) are calculated from these. Total protein Albumin Globulins Albumin to Globulin ratio (A:G) Ammonia and uric acid – both are by-products of protein metabolism Electrophoretic patterns Acute phase proteins C-reactive protein Serum amyloid A Immunoglobulins Failure of passive transfer  The test results on a chemistry panel provide quantitative values for the major proteins. However, ther…
…ses (usually >400,000/µL, particularly in younger animals). Spontaneous bleeding, that can attributed solely to thrombocytopenia, does not occur unless platelet counts are < 30,000/µL, although current guidelines in humans use a cut-off of <10,000/µL (clearly a moving target) for spontaneous bleeds (Jinna and Khandar, accessed February 2021). Studies in mice rendered thrombocytopenic by anti-platelet antibodies show that induced bleeding…
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