3-D Printers Help Vets Prep for SurgeryMay 20, 2015A $2,500 printer is spitting out realistic plastic bones to help Ohio State University veterinary students practice surgical techniques before they operate on dogs. The designs fed into the 3-D printer are based on CT images taken at the Veterinary Medical Center. “We can use a CT scan from a patient and produce a bone model that looks exactly like the bone in the dog,” said Tatiana Motta, DVM, MS, an assistant professor in the department of veterinary clinical sciences. The manufacturing is relatively fast—a few hours or less in some cases—but turning the CT image into a readable file for the printer is time consuming. A printed bone may be produced within 24 hours of a scan, Dr. Motta said. The 3-D printer—the MakerBot Replicator 2X—layers strings of plastic to create the bone, Ohio State reported. Each layer is 700 strings thick. Faculty members are using printed bones for training as well. 3-D replicas have assisted associate professor Jonathan Dyce, VetMB, MRCVS, Dipl. ACVS, as he plans surgeries on dogs suffering from severe limb deformities. “I think we are just starting to realize the advancements this technology may give us,” Dr. Dyce said. “The next few years …
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What Google’s Mobile Changes Mean to Vet PracticesMay 20, 2015When the iPhone debuted in the summer of 2007, few people thought it would grab hold with the steadfast grip that it did. Instead, it became the catalyst for a smartphone revolution, one that boiled everything down to fit right within your pocket. The mobile revolution is here to stay. As a matter of fact, the international smartphone market reached a momentous milestone in 2014, shipping 1 billion units in a single year for the first time. On top of that, an estimated 65 percent of emails sent today are opened via mobile. With recent advents in iOS and Android development, more smartphone users have adapted to a mobile way of doing business than ever before. The mobile ecosystem in general has skyrocketed with a truly cosmic force, allowing people to do more than ever with a single device. Slowly and surely, the smartphone has worked its way into homes and hearts as what could truly be considered a fifth appendage. It’s with this reality in mind that Internet search giant Google has decided to overhaul its Web-ranking system, and as a result, the functionality of websites toward mobile will soon be a significant part of Google’s ranking system. …
‘Veterinary Nurse’ May Become Protected TitleMay 20, 2015The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, which earlier this year brought veterinary nurses under its regulatory authority, is backing a bill that would forbid anyone not registered with the organization from using the title “veterinary nurse.” Legislation submitted Tuesday in the British Parliament’s House of Lords would permit fines to be levied on unqualified people who use the title or imply they are registered with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). “It would mark the final brick in the wall of creating a fully-fledged, recognized and protected veterinary nursing profession,” said the bill’s sponsor, Alexander “Sandy” Trees, BVMS, Ph.D., a member of the House of Lords. “This is what the veterinary nursing profession merits and the public deserve.” Supporters did not point to widespread misuse of the veterinary nurse—or veterinary technician—title. A narrated video on the RCVS website focuses on how the law would benefit pets. “It’s still possible for an unregistered person with no training to call themselves a veterinary nurse,” the video noted. “This could put animal welfare at risk. “Only people who have been properly trained and registered should be able to call themselves veterinary nurses.” Kathy Kissick, RVN, chairwoman of the RCVS Veterinary …
Bizarre Meals Cost Pet Owners Plenty in Vet BillsMay 19, 2015Rocks, balls and even rugs have ended up inside dogs, cats and other pets, sometimes with deadly results. The Trupanion pet health insurance company calculated that pets that swallow a foreign object cost their owners hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in veterinary bills to retrieve the item. And the farther a sock or knife—yes, it happens—moves, the more difficult its removal can be. “Some objects can pass uneventfully with supervision, but the longer pet owners wait, the more dangerous—and costly—foreign body ingestion can become,” said Kerri Marshall, DVM, the Seattle company’s chief veterinary officer. “As the object travels further along the gastrointestinal tract, the opportunity for complications increase and the cost to remove the object often increases along with it.” Trupanion, combing its records, reported that removing ingested objects is the second most common insurance claim from dog owners and the third most common among cat owners. The company, whose policies cover up to 90 percent of veterinary costs, paid out more than $1.8 million in 2014 in such cases. The cheapest and easiest removals tend to be for objects lodged in an animal’s mouth. The average cost, according to Trupanion, is $370, with a range of …
Salmonella Outbreak Tied to Crested GeckosMay 19, 2015U.S. public health officials are urging gecko owners to use common sense rather than get rid of their pet after 20 people nationwide were infected with salmonella. The strain, Salmonella Muenchen, has been linked to contact with crested geckos purchased at pet stores in different states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week. Over the past 17 months, 20 people contracted the bacterial strain. Two cases each were reported in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin and single cases in Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee and Virginia. None of the sickened people, ranging in age from 57 to less than 1, died. Three needed to be hospitalized, CDC stated. “The pet industry is working closely with CDC to determine the source of the crested geckos linked to this outbreak in order to prevent additional illnesses,” the agency noted. CDC is teaming up with veterinary and agriculture officials on the investigation. The agency issued the following tips: Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling reptiles and their habitats, food or equipment. Children younger than 5, people with weakened immune systems and adults older than 65 are at higher risk …
Penn Vet Creates Executive Director of the Office of Students PositionMay 19, 2015The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) has named Mary Bryant, VMD, as executive director of the office of students. In this newly created position, Dr. Bryant will oversee the recently consolidated Office of Admissions and the Office of Student and Curricular Affairs. She will be responsible for recruiting promising new students to Penn Vet and overseeing the welfare and needs of the students during their years on campus. “It is very important to me to continue enrolling the most qualified and diverse students,” Bryant said. “As an alumna and adjunct professor, I have a long history of engagement with Penn Vet. I am really looking forward to working closely with the students to ensure they have the best possible experience here and can look back on their years at Penn Vet as I do: as the best educational experience I ever had. I loved my student years at Penn.” Before joining Penn Vet, Bryant worked for Merial of Duluth, Ga., in Field Veterinary Services, first as a technical services veterinarian, and then as northeast regional director. Bryant has been an adjunct professor at Penn Vet for 14 years, teaching a professional development elective to third-year …
WSAVA Focuses on Stopping Pain in AnimalsMay 18, 2015A 59-page document that outlines pain management protocols for a wide range of patients—from dogs with degenerative joint disease to cats suffering from cancer—is winning the endorsement of veterinary organizations worldwide. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association’s Global Pain Council last week unveiled the “Guidelines for the Recognition, Assessment and Management of Pain” and urged WSAVA’s 92 member associations to support the document’s recommendations. Several dozen representatives did so at the start of WSAVA’s World Congress, raising to 48 the total number to organizations backing the guidelines. Managing pain effectively was the theme of the 2015 World Congress, which drew more than 4,000 people to Bangkok and wrapped up today. The organization’s president-elect, Walt Ingwersen, DVM, DVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, stressed the importance of what the Global Pain Council accomplished. “There is a wide variation in pain assessment and management around the world and we must work together to eliminate this variation because the ability to actually diagnose pain is certainly not dependent on regional differences and is a skill we all share,” Dr. Ingwersen said. The guidelines may be downloaded at http://bit.ly/1HqwviD. Among the 92 member organizations is the American Veterinary Medical Association, whose
LifeLearn’s ‘Dr. Sofie’ Aims to Know All the AnswersMay 15, 2015Type “congestive,” “heart failure” and “cat” into a Google search engine and nearly 450,000 results pop up. Where does a veterinarian start clicking and which sources should she trust? But ask Sofie, “What are the best treatments for congestive heart failure in a cat?” and the computer program returns what co-developer LifeLearn Inc. said are precise, evidence-based answers pulled from the Canadian company’s expansive database as well as from expert sources such as publishers Elsevier, Merck and Wiley and organizations like VetFolio. Based on IBM Corp.’s Watson cognitive computing platform—remember Watson’s demolishing of “Jeopardy” show champions in 2011?—Sofie was constructed to understand natural human language rather than rely on keywords. The results it spills out through a password-protected website come from hundreds of thousands of pages of veterinary resources. In beta testing for months, Sofie was rolled out publicly earlier this year. The technology industry took notice in January when Sofie was awarded two Everyday Health Awards for Innovation during the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Aberdeen Veterinary Clinic in Aberdeen, Md., was the first veterinary clinic to use Sofie. “Instead of pulling out a few different texts and having them on my desk, I just have a …
UC Davis Gives Cat New EyelidsMay 15, 2015Practice made perfect for UC Davis veterinary ophthalmologists, who after performing a rare transplant on feline cadavers were able to construct upper eyelids on a cat born without them. The surgery, called lip commissure to eyelid transposition, was successfully performed on a 9-month-old female domestic shorthair named Billie, who suffered from a congenital defect known as eyelid agenesis. The condition was a source of constant discomfort as hair around Billie’s eyes rubbed against the corneas, according to the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine. The absence of eyelids also prevented Billie from blinking and lubricating her eyes. A surgery team made up of Ophthalmology Service veterinarians Ann Strom, DVM, MS, and Lionel Sebbag, DVM, knew about a procedure never tried before at UC Davis but documented in the journal Veterinary Ophthalmology in 2010. Drs. Strom and Sebbag practiced removing tissue from the cadavers’ cheeks and lips and transplanting it as an eyelid, the university stated. Once confident in their ability, the surgeons consulted with Billie’s owner, who gave the go-ahead for the transplant. Billie’s tissue grafts showed no signs of rejection or infection at one- and two-week checkups. After two months, the new eyelids were taking …
Drug Developer Jaguar Raises Millions in IPOMay 14, 2015Jaguar Animal Health Inc. launched an initial public offering Wednesday with the intention of generating millions of dollars to fund clinical studies of proposed gastrointestinal drugs for pets and livestock. The young San Francisco company sold 2.86 million shares of common stock at $7 each. The first day of trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol JAGX ended with the stock down slightly, to $6.78. Jaguar expects to spend some of the $15.1 million in net proceeds on studying and winning regulatory approval of Canalevia, a drug formulated to fight chemotherapy-induced diarrhea and watery diarrhea in dogs, the company stated in its prospectus. Money also is earmarked for the development of species-specific formulations of crofelemer to treat watery diarrhea in cats, acute colitis in horses, and gastric and colonic ulcers in horses. Crofelemer, an antidiarrheal isolated from the Croton lechleri tree, is used in Canalevia. Farther down the product pipeline are prescription drugs to treat feline herpes virus, obesity-related metabolic dysfunction in dogs, metabolic syndrome in horses and Type II diabetes in cats. The company's has one product on the market: the over-the-counter medication Neonorm Calf, a treatment for watery diarrhea, or scours, in preweaned …
