MRI Navicular with no soft tissue damage

[cptrayes]

Can any of you please tell me whether you have had a horse which has had an MRI and has navicular bone erosion without soft tissue damage.

Diagnosis from xrays alone will not help me, sorry, I particularly need to know about MRI results in the same ballpark as a horse I will be taking on short term livery tomorrow, and what his prognosis might be. I am particularly interested in anyone who has had a successful or unsuccessful barefoot rehab of a horse with sound collateral ligaments and DDFT but navicular bone erosion.

Thanks!

 

[tobysg]

Hello,

I am doing research around imaging of degenerative bony changes in distal limbs.
I read an article which did a study on each modality using cadaver limbs and the conclusion to the study was that the imaging showed the navicular to of began within the tendons before the bones leading to a false negative radiograph.
I am not too sure whether you will be able to access the article as I have an institutional login.
If you search in google scholar for 'The diagnosis of lameness associated with distal limb pathology in a horse: A comparison of radiography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.' There is some interesting information on there.
I'll be interested if you do find anything else out though and will follow this thread.

 

[cptrayes]

Thankyou Tobysg, I know of that research. The interesting thing about this horse is that the MRI is, according to the supervising vet, showing no soft tissue damage. I am very suspicious that the MRI is being misinterpreted, or that the two months box rest that the horse has been on has cured a DDFT lesion but left him with adhesions that still hurt but don't show.

I'm half hopeful that the horse will turn up with thrush and the navicular bone will be a red herring. Plenty of "navicular" horses have actually been found to have nasty fungal infections in the frog!