returned from vets with no diagnosis-scintigraphy-questions

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clairefeekerry1

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just come back from vets after lameness investigations. they still cant give me a diagnosis and now he has to be reffered to another equine hospital for scintigraphy. i am now gettig confused between all these scans and things. he is only lame when ridden (he is now horribly lame when ridden) and shows no response to bute he was nerve blockd on both legs today and no difference(this has been done twice now). he then had his feet,pasterns,fetlocks x rayed and they were very clean. one of his navicular bones looked slightly 'odd' to the vet, but not enough for a diagnosis and they thought it might just be the shape of the bone and it always had been like that, plus its not on the leg he is lame on. so they are really pushing for a bone scan. i've read my insurance policy and it says i am only covered 50% for MRI scans. is scintigraphy and MRI the same thing? what will it show? will it show muscle or soft tissue damage? the things the vet has said it could be are arthritis in the neck, DDFT damage or soft tissue damage or navicular. will scintigraphy confirm either way??????
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BOne scans and MRI are completely different. For a bone scan they inject a radioactive isotope into the horse which is taken up by areas of a lot of bone growth and activity - ie where there is injury. They then scan the horse and look for red areas on the scanner! It therefore only shows up bone and cartilage problems.

Definitely worth speaking to your insurer before you go any further as the bill for this will be in 4 figures. Your horse will need to be an in-patient for a while as their urine is radioactive for a couple of days afterwards so you can't have them at home till they have passes the isotope out.

Hope that is helpful, Tango had a bone scan about 10 yrs ago so this info may be outdated! It was certainly useful for her, showed she had a bad tear to her cartilage in her stifle and a broken pedal bone which couldn't be spotten by x-ray.

bye!
 
hi, thanks

4 figures!!!! really. i didnt think it would be that much. someone said to me the vets are only doing it to get money and refferal fees and because its insurance they know they can. but what else can i do?? if thats what they reccomend i have got to go with that
 
all the above is correct.

My lad is going for a bone scan this week at the request of the insurance company after they couldn't diagnose following nerve blocks and x-rays.

A bone scan IS covered on my policy, whilst an MRI ISN'T, I just rang them up to check before booking it in as it is V. expensive as TC says!!

I'm not sure if the bone scan would show up any soft tissue damage, best to speak to the vets that do them regularly to get some knowledge on that.
 
My bone scan was £1400, then there were x-ray and sedation fees on top of that. She was there 3 days and the bill came to less that £2k. This was last month, so prices are current.

Just so you have an idea how much it may cost.
 
quirky said:
My bone scan was £1400, then there were x-ray and sedation fees on top of that. She was there 3 days and the bill came to less that £2k. This was last month, so prices are current.

Just so you have an idea how much it may cost.
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thank you. if you had insurance did it pay out for it all and did it help in the diagnosis?
 
Scintigraphy will show a hot-spot - somewhere for th vet to focus his attention on, assuming it's a bone problem. It won't necessarily give a diagnosis. It can be very useful if then followed by MRI, which should give a diagnosis as it's about as close as you can get to slicing the leg into thin strips and taking a photograph of each slice... It takes a long time to take an MRI image, hence why it's often used with scintigraphy so a smaller area can be focused on.

I assume the reason your vet wants a scintigraphy done is to rule out the neck issue - there's not much point MRI scanning four legs (or even one) if the issue is with the neck.

My horse's MRI cost £1118 all-in (stabling, sedation etc, standing scanner). My insurance paid half.
 
My young mare ended up needing scintigraphy in order to diagnose arthritis in both stifles. It showed up the areas of inflammation very clearly and she was then opened up to discover the full extent of damage. Unfortunately, her joints were damaged beyond hope of recovery, (at 4yrs old), and she was pts. My bill was £5k and the insurers paid it no quibbles.
 
clairefeekerry1 said:
thank you. if you had insurance did it pay out for it all and did it help in the diagnosis?
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Yes, insurance have covered it and yes, it aided diagnosis.
It was actually very interesting and in our case, definitely worth doing as it threw up something the vet hadn't even considered.
 
all v useful replies.

the vet thinks its either in his foot or his neck. so i suppose i could get the Syntigraphy done first which will be covered on ins (have just checked) and then if that shows nothing look down the route of MRI (i'd need to a bit of time to get some money together as only 50% of this is covered)
i'm just a bit concerned if its muscle damage somewher or a trapped nerve or something then that wont show on anything.
 
My mare had an MRI which showed up the tear in her DDFT within her hoof. It was amazing to watch and I saw the images there and then with a full report of the findings later thro the post. That was a year ago and cost me £512.89 which was my 50%, NFU paid the rest.
 
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