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Case Study: MRI - Spinal cord
Billy started limping on his hind leg after jumping to catch a ball. Over the following weeks his lameness became progressively worse. He became incontinent, his hip became quite painful, and he developed paralysis of his tail. Specialists at Willows localised the problem to his lower back, and although a disc protrusion (slipped disc) was a possibility, the concern was that something more sinister may have occurred. We advised an MRI scan of Billy’s lower back and unfortunately our fears were confirmed. A large tumour was identified growing into his spinal canal, and on humane grounds his owners elected that he be put to sleep while he was still anaesthetised. This was a very sad outcome, but the advanced imaging techniques we have at Willows allowed us to be sure of the nature of the problem, so that we could help Billy's owners make a fully informed decision for him.
The MRI image shows a slice through the top of his spinal cord. The spinal cord extends down through the middle of the image. The thin paired dark lines on either side of the spinal cord are slices through the vertebrae. Near the bottom of the image a mass can be seen within the vertebral canal to the right side of the spinal cord, squashing it over to the left. Other image slices showed that this mass extended outside of the spine and along one of the nerves that leave the spine.
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