How can MRI help you and your client?

Often the outcome of a lameness work-up is a horse that blocks to a region but has no visible changes on X-ray or ultrasound. With these cases you are forced into an assumptive diagnosis and rely on the response to treatment over time to confirm or refute your hypothesis.

This costs your client time and money.

This is where a standing MRI can help you make an early, safe and accurate diagnosis.

Early - because you can MRI your case as soon as the regional blocks confirm the location. You don't have to try different treatments and then MRI in 3 - 6 months time as a last resort.

Safe - because the Hallmarq system offers the choice of standing MRI thus avoiding the inherent risks of general anaesthesia.

Accurate - because in the absence of X-ray or ultrasound findings you are having to rely on judgement not a positive diagnosis. For example published papers¹ report that injecting the navicular bursa can give good results provided there are no associated changes on the flexor surface of the navicular bone; in these cases the prognosis is poor. A standing MRI will help you differentiate which palmar foot pain cases have a good prognosis and merit treatment and which don't.

¹ Bell, C.D. et al. Outcomes of podotrochlear (navicular) bursa injections for signs of foot pain in horses evaluated via magnetic resonance imaging: 23 cases (2005-2007). JAVMA 2009; Vol 234, No. 7; 920-925.