Case StudiesBella the Boxer had a mast cell tumour on her face. Soft tissue surgeon Prue Neath of the Animal Health Trust had to excise the tumour with a large enough margin to guarantee removing all the cancerous cells. Though an apparently drastic amount of flesh had to be removed from her face, cosmetically Bella looks very similar after the procedure. In the pathology lab the removed lump was tested to see if the margins were clear. Bluebell the Persian cat has been diagnosed with a corneal sequestrum. Veterinary Opthalmologist Dr Jane Sansom of the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket is conducting an investigation into the cancerous tumours. It has to be operated on immediately before it grows and causes the eye to perforate and collapse. The operation is performed under a specially designed ophthalmology microscope to save her sight. Bramble is a working shire horse but was brought to the Royal Veterinary College Equine unit with a suspected lame left foreleg. Dr Roger Smith takes him through the diagnostic walking and flexion tests and nerve blocks to pinpoint which part of the leg is lame. The state of the art X-ray machine reveals a broken navicular bone in the hoof. A specialist farrier has to fit a corrective bar shoe and Bramble's leg is plastered to allow the bone to heal. Buster the black Labrador was born with hip dysplasia which had led to severe arthritis of his hip. Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Sorrel Langley-Hobbs of Cambridge Vet School carried out the very latest hip replacement surgery using a technique developed by Dr Marvin Olmstead of Ohio State University involving drills, bits, files, and the metal components, which are cemented in place. Calfie had already been under investigation for 6 months. Karin Mueller, lecturer in Farm Animal Medicine at Cambridge University Vet School could not find why Calfie suffered from a recurrent Urinary Tract Infection. So she underwent a further course of diagnostic tests, X-ray - ultrasound, numsystomgram, endoscope and laproscopy but in the end had to operate. Gutu the Zimbabwean German Shepherd is nearly 12 but she has a large lump on her neck which onocologist Sue Murphy of the AHT diagnosed as a mixo-sarcoma. This was expertly removed by soft tissue surgeon Prue Neath. But, because of it's proximity to Gutu's larynx and windpipe, a large enough margin could not be removed so the remaining tumour was irradiated by the only megavoltage gamma camera dedicated to animals in the country, at Cambridge. Unusually, the biopsy on the tumour found a second tumour, so Gutu also had to undergo chemotherapy. Jack the racehorse is under-performing. He is brought to the Equine unit of the AHT for a week-long stay to acclimatise to the indoor treadmill so senior vet Dr Colin Roberts can perform an endoscopy on him as he is galloping to see if he has a severely billowing pallet. Jenny the Cavalier Spaniel is an emergency admission for clinical neurologist Laurent Garosi at the AHT small animal centre in Newmarket. Her back legs were paralysed in an accident. An MRI scan reveals a slipped disc causing herniation and dilation of the central canal. Laurent has to operate under a microscope to take out the articular facet and drill through the vertebrae to access the vertebral canal and remove the disc. Remy the rescue cat had an axillary wound (in her armpit). Dr Dick White, a leading lecturer in soft tissue surgery at Cambridge had pioneered a surgery to fix these wounds which prior to his work never healed. He takes some stomach lining and a flap of skin from the back of the shoulder over to the armpit allowing the wound to drain and providing it with a new blood supply. Ruby the terrier crossbreed, just 7 months old, was born with a diaphragmatic hernia and a significant heart murmur. Dr Dick White, a leading lecturer in soft tissue surgery at Cambridge, had to retrieve her abdominal contents from her chest and repair her diaphragm. Samson an 18 year old the shire horse had a lame hind leg which no vet had been able to fully diagnose. Dr Sue Dyson, Head of Orthopaedics at the AHT took him through a week long programme of rigorous tests using the latest techniques and cutting edge technology including scintigraphy Xrays with radioactive isotopes and ultrasound. He was found to be suffering from Proximal Suspensory Dyasmitis - luckily for Samson Sue was the first vet in Europe to diagnose the condition in the 1980s. Sandy, a nine year old Cocker Spaniel with a suspected heart murmur had an MRI scan at the AHT in Newmarket. They found a huge malignant spindle cell sarcoma on his upper jaw and in his nasal cavity which surgeon Dr Davina Anderson of Cambridge University vet school had to remove. He then had four courses of mega voltage radiation under oncologist Dr Jane Dobson at the only dedicated animal cancer therapy unit in Britain. Sparkey, an enormous Irish draughthorse was an emergency admission with chronic colic at the Royal Veterinary College Equine Centre. Despite weighing nearly 800kilos, equine surgeons Michael Archer and Ehud Eliashar decide to undertake the 2 hour risky operation, to untwist Sparkey's intestines and release the gases in his caecum (appendix).
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Using innovative new filming techniques, Hi-Tech Vets, was able, for the first time, to introduce the viewer to the cutting edge of animal surgery. From chimpanzees to cocker spaniels, racehorses to Friesian cows, Hi-tech Vets opened people's eyes to the 21st Century world of animal welfare science.The series presenter was Mark Evans, one of Britain's best known vets. A regular on television for the last twelve years he is an expert on animal welfare and anthrozoology. He visited Britain's leading centres of vetinary excellence including:
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