Cross‐sectional imaging: the key to anatomy

IN recent years, cross-sectional imaging has become more and more important in veterinary medicine, to aid exact diagnosis of pathology and surgical planning. Both CT and MRI are used for this purpose. Once a pathological process has been identified and diagnosed, the ability of cross-sectional imaging to reconstruct the anatomical situation in any desired image plane, and also three-dimensionally, is the tremendous advantage of these modalities.Recently, both CT and MRI have become much more popular and available than only a couple of years ago. Many larger and specialist clinics have either a CT or MRI scanner, if not both, installed. The more recent equipment is very sophisticated and able to reconstruct cross-sectional images of any scanned anatomical part in a chosen image plane and create 3D representations of the imaged structures within a useful time frame.Cross-sectional imaging is used in all species. The limiting factor for examination is usually the relative size of the gantry and patient or body part of the patient. Complicated anatomical structures such as the skull can be viewed in cross section without having to struggle with superimposition of many structures of different opacities. Thus CT is often used to image the skull in horses, small animals, …