At Inland Valley Veterinary Specialists in Upland, our board-certified veterinarians use advanced diagnostic tools including our in-house MRI, which can help to diagnose a range of health issues in dogs from a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament to brain tumors. Today, we talk about why MRI scans for dogs can be useful, and the conditions this technology can help diagnose.

Veterinary Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) has been readily available to help diagnose human health concerns since the early 1980s, but it is only recently that veterinary MRIs have become more widely used.

Why Veterinary MRIs Are Helpful

Although it can be obvious when our pets are experiencing pain or discomfort, we aren't able to understand exactly what they feel without diagnostic examinations and testing to find the cause of the issue. Veterinary MRI scans allow us to evaluate the inside of your dog's body in a non-invasive way.

MRI scans can provide high-resolution, detailed images of your pet's soft tissues, such as the brain, spinal cord, ligaments, tendons, and abdominal organs, to your veterinarian. Veterinary MRIs can often provide a more detailed image of your dog's body than other diagnostic imaging tools such as X-Rays or CT Scans for many types of soft tissue injuries or diseases.

Conditions That MRIs Can Help to Diagnose

If your dog is exhibiting symptoms such as limping, lameness, seizures, joint pain, neck pain, back pain, or paralysis, an MRI might be recommended to help diagnose the cause of your dog's symptoms. MRI scans can be used to help diagnose a wide range of conditions in dogs including:

Spinal disc tumor, herniated discs, or stenosis
Brain tumor, inflammation, or abscess
Stroke
Musculoskeletal diseases and injuries (e.g. ruptured cranial cruciate ligament, shoulder instability)
Conditions affecting the abdomen as indicated by organ enlargement or tumor

The Veterinary MRI Process

When it comes to MRIs, both pets and humans require the same amount of time – 45 minutes to an hour. Because the MRI requires the patient to be completely still, imagine the impossible task of trying to calm a dog enough to stay still in a strange machine for up to an hour! On dogs undergoing an MRI scan, general anesthetic is used to reduce the risk of stressing your dog and to allow the veterinarian and vet techs to capture the best quality images. Blood tests and X-rays are typically recommended prior to the MRI to ensure that your pet is healthy enough to be sedated.

Potential Drawbacks of Veterinary MRIs

The need for general anesthetic is one of the primary drawbacks of MRI for veterinary diagnostics. Some dogs may not be strong enough to go under anesthetic, which means that MRI is not an option for them as a diagnostic tool.

Although MRI is particularly useful in diagnosing brain, spinal cord, and ligament issues, there are other conditions that are better detected using other diagnostic imaging tools such as CT and radiography (x-rays). MRI may be less helpful when diagnosing internal organs, fractures, or head trauma in dogs.

Another disadvantage of MRI is the cost, which can be prohibitively expensive for some pet parents. If your dog requires an MRI, the cost could be in the thousands of dollars. Despite this, most pet insurance plans will cover the cost of diagnostic testing such as MRI (check with your insurer to see if MRI is part of your pet's coverage).