Referring Cases for Medical Investigation

Beaufort Cottage Equine Hospital and Diagnostic Centre offer excellent facilities for investigation, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Cases are accepted from both the ambulatory side of the practice and from referring veterinary surgeons.

The case load (approx. 150 per annum) includes horses with cardiac, thoracic, hepatic, renal, alimentary, neurological, metabolic and other abdominal diseases.

Horses with cardiac disease are examined with 2-D echocardiography and Doppler echocardiography using ultrasound scanners with continuous and pulsewave doppler facility.

The availability of a narrow 2.25m videoendoscope allows internal examination of the upper airways, stomach, urethra, bladder and uterus. Horses admitted for videogastroscopic examination must be starved for 12-14 hrs prior to examination and have water withheld for 4-6 hours. Gastric ulceration is increasingly being recognised as a cause of poor appetite and condition in horses in training but also to a lesser extent in other competition horses.

Weight loss investigation has been expanded to include white cell labelled scintigraphic examination for the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease and laparoscopy where indicated. The input of experienced medical clinicians has also benefited from the high quality in-house laboratory service at Beaufort Cottage Laboratories, which allows state of the art investigation of diseases of many organ systems.

One of the stables in the Hospital Yard has been fitted with a video camera and padded walls. This allows the constant monitoring of neurological cases.