Diagnostic Technology

If your veterinary specialist performs a physical examination and suspects your pet may have a heart disorder, we usually take chest X-rays and an electrocardiogram (ECG / EKG).

This procedure can be completed easily and quickly. It reveals data that may be integral to your pet's diagnosis. In other cases, a cardiac ultrasound may be required to identify disorders in the chambers of the heart.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) uses a powerful magnetic field, a computer, and radio waves to provide your veterinarian with high-resolution, detailed images of your pet's soft tissues such as the brain, spinal cord, ligaments, tendons, and abdominal organs.

When it comes to many soft tissue injuries or diseases, veterinary MRI often provides a more detailed picture of your animal's body than other diagnostic imaging tools are able to provide.

Our vets can then examine these images on a computer monitor or print them. 

Some conditions that MRI can help to diagnose and treat include spinal issues such as tumors, herniated discs or stenosis; brain tumors and inflammation; strokes; musculoskeletal diseases and injuries including cranial cruciate ligament injuries; and abdominal conditions including organ enlargement or tumors. 

Using a radiograph (digital x-ray), we can examine your pet's internal systems to reveal information that may be invisible from the outside. 

Radiography is safe, painless and non-invasive. It uses only very low doses of radiation. Because the level of radiation exposure required to perform radiography is very low, even pregnant females and very young pets can undergo this procedure. 

Radiographs can be used to evaluate bones and organs, and diagnose conditions including broken bones, chronic arthritis, bladder stones, spinal cord diseases and some tumors. 

The use of diagnostic imaging allows our team of veterinary professionals to create extremely detailed images of your pet's internal structures.

With ultrasound imaging, we expose part of the body to high-frequency sound waves to produce images of the inside of the body. 

Because we capture ultrasound images in real-time, we can see the structure and movement of your pet's internal organs, as well as blood flowing through the blood vessels.

Having this valuable technology available to our vets in our in-house lab means that your dog or cat's condition can be diagnosed quickly and treatment can start sooner. 

At our vet lab in Burlington we are able to run a number of common and specialized blood tests to determine the health of your pet, and to diagnose illness.

Some of the most common veterinary blood tests we do are CBC (complete blood count), white blood count, hemoglobin and MCHC (mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration), hematocrit, platelets, eosinophils, and blood serum profile. 

Urinalysis is a key diagnostic test that provides your vet with essential insights into the physical and chemical properties of your pet's urine.

Urinalysis is primarily used to assess the health of your animal's kidneys and urinary tract system, but it can also be helpful in detecting issues in other organ systems and is important for diagnosing metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

This is a valuable diagnostic test for both healthy and sick animals and should be included in any comprehensive evaluation of your pet's overall health.