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Objective: To determine the accuracy of ultrasound for diagnosing hip luxation in dogs presenting for hind limb lameness., Methods: 24 client-owned dogs presenting with pelvic limb lameness and concern for hip luxation were enrolled in this prospective diagnostic accuracy study from April 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022. An experienced ultrasonographer and a novice ultrasonographer, both masked to the diagnoses, performed hip ultrasonography using a point-of-care ultrasound machine. The experienced evaluator also performed a more comprehensive ultrasonography with a high-end ultrasound machine to characterize concurrent pelvis and hip disease. Pelvic radiographs served as the criterion standard for the diagnosis of hip luxation., Results: Ultrasonographic diagnosis of hip luxation demonstrated high accuracy, ranging from 84.2% to 100% for detecting the presence of luxation and 80.6% to 98.1% for diagnosing the direction of luxation for the novice and experienced evaluators, respectively, with substantial interevaluator agreement (κ = 0.722). Compared to radiographs, ultrasound accurately diagnosed the presence of osteoarthrosis with almost perfect agreement (κ = 0.913) and the presence of fractures of the femoral head/neck and the nonaxial portions of the pelvis with substantial intermodality agreement (κ = 0.775). In 36% of patients, ultrasound identified injury to soft tissue structures that contribute to hip stability, including the gluteal muscles, gemelli, and joint capsule., Conclusions: Ultrasound can be utilized to accurately diagnose the presence of hip luxation and document concurrent hip and pelvic disease., Clinical Relevance: Applications include the use of ultrasonography as part of a routine point-of-care protocol to catalogue injuries in patients with acute trauma and in mobile practice or remote settings where radiography is not readily available.

This retrospective analytical observational cohort study aimed to model and predict the classification of feline intestinal diseases from segmentations of a transverse section from small intestine ultrasound (US) image, complete blood count (CBC), and serum biochemical profile data using a variety of machine-learning approaches. In 149 cats from three institutions, images were obtained from cats with biopsy-confirmed small cell epitheliotropic lymphoma (lymphoma), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), no pathology ("healthy"), and other conditions (warrant a biopsy for further diagnosis). CBC, blood serum chemistry, small intestinal ultrasound, and small intestinal biopsy were obtained within a 2-week interval. CBC and serum biomarkers and radiomic features were combined for modeling. Four classification schemes were investigated: (1) normal versus abnormal; (2) warranting or not warranting a biopsy; (3) lymphoma, IBD, healthy, or other conditions; and (4) lymphoma, IBD, or other conditions. Two feature selection methods were used to identify the top 3, 5, 10, and 20 features, and six machine learning models were trained. The average (95% CI) performance of models for all combinations of features, numbers of features, and types of classifiers was 0.886 (0.871-0.912) for Model 1 (normal vs. abnormal), 0.751 (0.735-0.818) for Model 2 (biopsy vs. no biopsy), 0.504 (0.450-0.556) for Model 3 (lymphoma, IBD, healthy, or other), and 0.531 (0.426-0.589), for Model 4 (lymphoma, IBD, or other). Our findings suggest model accuracies above 0.85 can be achieved in Model 1 and 2, and that including CBC and biochemistry data with US radiomics data did not significantly improve accuracy in our models., (© 2023 The Authors. Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American College of Veterinary Radiology.)

This two-part study design showed that a canine congenital intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (IPSS) may be classified by its location within a liver fissure (interlobar) or lobe (intralobar). A prospective anatomic study reviewed normal canine liver morphology and showed the CT angiography (CTA) appearance of the normal canine ductus venosus (DV), which was confirmed via dissection and literature review to be between the papillary process and left-lateral liver lobe (in the fissure for ligamentum venosum). A retrospective multi-institutional case series documented the frequency of imaging findings in 56 dogs with a single IPSS that underwent portal CTA at Cornell University or the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center between June 2008 and August 2022. An interlobar IPSS was seen in 24 of 56 (43%) dogs, all arose from the left portal branch except one. These shunts were typically near the median plane, remained interlobar throughout the course, and were nearly always (96%) craniodorsal to the porta hepatis. Four types were distinguished: patent DV (11 dogs), left interlobar (11 dogs), right interlobar (1 dog), and ventral interlobar (1 dog). Only about half (46%) were in the fissure for ligamentum venosum and therefore classified as a patent DV. An intralobar IPSS was seen in 32 of 56 (57%) dogs, most (88%) originated from the right portal branch and were in the right-lateral liver lobe (21 dogs) or caudate process (7 dogs). During canine portal CTA, documenting the interlobar or intralobar location of an IPSS might increase the consistency and validity of IPSS description., (© 2023 American College of Veterinary Radiology.)

Proximal sesamoid bone (PSB) fracture is the leading cause of fatal musculoskeletal injury in Thoroughbred racehorses in Hong Kong and the US. Efforts are underway to investigate diagnostic modalities that could help identify racehorses at increased risk of fracture; however, features associated with PSB fracture risk are still poorly understood. The objectives of this study were to (1) investigate third metacarpal (MC3) and PSB density and mineral content using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), computed tomography (CT), Raman spectroscopy, and ash fraction measurements, and (2) investigate PSB quality and metacarpophalangeal joint (MCPJ) pathology using Raman spectroscopy and CT. Forelimbs were collected from 29 Thoroughbred racehorse cadavers ( n = 14 PSB fracture, n = 15 control) for DXA and CT imaging, and PSBs were sectioned for Raman spectroscopy and ash fraction measurements. Bone mineral density (BMD) was greater in MC3 condyles and PSBs of horses with more high-speed furlongs. MCPJ pathology, including palmar osteochondral disease (POD), MC3 condylar sclerosis, and MC3 subchondral lysis were greater in horses with more high-speed furlongs. There were no differences in BMD or Raman parameters between fracture and control groups; however, Raman spectroscopy and ash fraction measurements revealed regional differences in PSB BMD and tissue composition. Many parameters, including MC3 and PSB bone mineral density, were strongly correlated with total high-speed furlongs.

Measurements of intestinal wall thicknesses from ultrasound imaging (US) are routinely used to support diagnoses of intestinal disorders in cats, however published studies describing observer agreement are currently lacking. The aim of this retrospective, observer agreement study was to quantify inter- and intraobserver repeatability and agreement in the measurement of intestinal wall layer thicknesses and the segmentation of transverse sections of small intestines in US images of 20 cats. Intestinal wall layer thickness measurements of the mucosa, submucosa, muscularis, serosa layer, and total thickness of these layers were performed on five cats with small cell epitheliotropic lymphoma, five with inflammatory bowel disease, and 10 with other conditions. Thickness measurements and the segmentation encompassing the serosa layer were obtained from five observers four times non-sequentially. The average standard deviation in thickness measurements (95% confidence interval) in the mucosa, submucosa, muscularis, serosa, and total thickness were 0.35 (0.07-0.95), 0.24 (0.07-0.52), 0.22 (0.06-0.49), 0.20 (0.05-0.49), and 0.57 (0.11-1.60) mm, respectively. The average intraclass correlation coefficients, which estimates the degree of consistency in thickness measurements and segmentation areas for each observer, ranged from 0.355 to 0.870 and 0.850 to 0.993, respectively. The interclass correlation coefficient, which estimates the degree of consistency when measuring a thickness or segmentation area over all observers ranged from 0.115 to 0.753, and 0.811 to 0.902, respectively. The overall average Dice Coefficient, which estimates the extent of overlap of the segmentations for all observers was 0.957 (0.933 to 0.972). Our results suggest segmentations of small intestines have a higher interobserver agreement than measurements of intestinal wall thicknesses., (© 2022 The Authors. Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American College of Veterinary Radiology.)

Acute hip luxation is a common musculoskeletal injury in dogs, with radiographs being the preferred imaging modality for confirming the diagnosis. In large animal and human medicine, ultrasound is often utilized for this purpose. The objectives of this three-part study were to utilize a canine cadaver model to establish ultrasonographic features of hip luxation and evaluate the accuracy and reliability for diagnosing hip luxation with ultrasound. For the first prospective, exploratory study, a cadaver model was developed that allowed manual luxation and subsequent ultrasonography of the hip joint while in four directions of luxation. For the second prospective, anatomic study, a description of the ultrasonographic features for each direction of luxation was created. For the third prospective diagnostic accuracy, observer agreement study, 16 residency-trained and intern veterinarians without prior experience in this technique performed randomized, repeated ultrasound exams on cadaver hips assigned as normal or luxated (equally distributed between the 4 directions). A total of 1140 hip ultrasounds were performed with good accuracy (median, 90.8%; range, 61.4-100%), sensitivity (89.5%), and specificity (80.0%) for diagnosing the presence of hip luxation. Accuracy for identifying the correct quadrant of luxation was significantly lower (mean, 58.6%; range, 24.6-90.8%; P < 0.001). Intraobserver accuracy agreement varied widely from none to almost perfect agreement, and interobserver agreement ranged from slight to moderate agreement. The results of this study supported the use of ultrasound for diagnosing the presence of hip luxation but did not support replacing radiographs for diagnosing the direction of luxation., (© 2022 American College of Veterinary Radiology.)

Teat-end health assessments are crucial to maintain milk quality and dairy cow health. One approach to automate teat-end health assessments is by using a convolutional neural network to classify the magnitude of teat-end alterations based on digital images. This approach has been demonstrated as feasible with GoogLeNet but there remains a number of challenges, such as low performance and comparing performance with different ImageNet models. In this paper, we present a separable confident transductive learning (SCTL) model to improve the performance of teat-end image classification. First, we propose a separation loss to ameliorate the inter-class dispersion. Second, we generate high confident pseudo labels to optimize the network. We further employ transductive learning to narrow the gap between training and test datasets with categorical maximum mean discrepancy loss. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SCTL model consistently achieves higher accuracy across all seventeen different ImageNet models when compared with retraining of original approaches.

Much research has been done to develop methods to assess dimensional teat traits in dairy cows. In contrast, diagnostic techniques to reliably assess the circulatory system of teats are limited. Infrared thermography facilitates measurements of skin temperature and could be used to detect physiological and pathological changes to the teat tissue associated with machine milking, as temperature reflects the underlying blood circulation and tissue metabolism. Our objective was to develop and evaluate a scanning technique to quantify teat skin temperature in dairy cows using infrared thermography. Using a portable thermography camera, 2 operators obtained duplicate scans of both hind teats from 20 Holstein cows, resulting in 80 thermographic images (20 cows × 2 operators × 2 images). Average teat skin temperatures at the proximal, middle, and distal teat aspects were determined. We used Pearson correlation coefficients (r), intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), and concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) to assess interoperator reproducibility (i.e., agreement between measurements performed by different operators) and intraoperator repeatability (i.e., agreement between measurements performed by the same operator). Pearson correlation coefficients revealed a very strong correlation for measurements at the proximal, middle, and distal aspects of the teat, respectively, between operators (r ≥0.95) and duplicate scans (r ≥0.94) within operators. Intraclass correlation coefficients and CCC indicated excellent interoperator reproducibility (ICC ≥0.95, CCC ≥0.95) and excellent intraoperator repeatability (ICC ≥0.94, CCC ≥0.94), respectively, for measurements at all 3 aspects. Least squares means (95% confidence interval) for average teat skin temperatures at the proximal, middle, and distal teat aspects, respectively, were 33.2 (32.6-33.8), 32.4 (31.5-33.2), and 30.9 (29.8-32.0) °C for operator 1, and 33.2 (32.6-33.8), 32.4 (31.6-33.3), and 31.0 (29.9-32.0) °C for operator 2. Average temperatures between duplicate scans within operators at the proximal, middle, and distal aspects, respectively, were 33.3 (32.7-33.9), 32.5 (31.7-33.3), and 31.0 (29.9-32.1) °C for the first scan and 33.2 (32.6-33.8), 32.3 (31.5-33.1), and 30.8 (29.7-31.9) °C for the second scan. We conclude that infrared thermography facilitates precise measurements of skin temperatures of cows' hind teats., (© 2022.)

We describe a novel approach for analyzing thermal images by way of radiomics (i.e., thermal radiomics) and how it can be used to monitor short-term temperature changes of dairy cow hind teats; that is, delta thermal radiomics. The heat generated from metabolic activities and blood-flow patterns can be visualized using thermal radiography of the skin surface. The hind teats from 25 dairy cows were imaged with a digital thermal camera and the images were converted to medical images (DICOM format) by mapping the multi-channel colorized thermal image to a monochromatic image whose intensities represent temperature. The 50 teats (left and right hind) were then manually segmented by 2 investigators. Radiomics analysis, which is a common method of extracting semantic and nonsemantic image biomarkers from medical images for machine learning, was performed. To evaluate whether this approach can detect pre- and postmilking differences, 18 cows were imaged before and after milking, the teats were manually segmented, and radiomic calculations were performed. Student's t -test was used to provide an estimate of the likelihood of whether postmilking thermal image biomarkers are the same as premilking thermal image biomarkers, and Cohen's d was used to evaluate the size of the effect ( d > 1.2). To evaluate uncertainties from manual segmentation, the Dice similarity score (DS) between the 2 investigators' segments was computed. The average DS (95% confidence limit) was 0.952 (0.913-0.982) when comparing the 2 investigators' segmentations. There was no significant difference in DS when comparing the left and right segmented teats, suggesting that teats can be segmented consistently. No differences ( d < 0.36) were observed when comparing image biomarkers from one investigator's segments with the other's, suggesting that image biomarkers computed from one investigator's segmentation of teats are not likely to differ from those computed from the other investigator. When comparing image biomarkers before and after milking, 109 image biomarkers were analyzed, and 17 image biomarkers were simultaneously significant and exhibited effect size. Thus, delta thermal radiomics offers a noninvasive and quantitative method of monitoring skin temperature changes in humans and animals after an intervention. The advantage of this approach is that it can reveal both perceptible and imperceptible surface temperature features that may be useful for detecting and managing dairy teat health., (© 2022.)

Infections with pathogenic bacteria entering the mammary gland through the teat canal are the most common cause of mastitis in dairy cows; therefore, sustaining the integrity of the teat canal and its adjacent tissues is critical to resist infection. The ability to monitor teat tissue condition is a key prerequisite for udder health management in dairy cows. However, to date, routine assessment of teat condition is limited to cow-side visual inspection, making the evaluation a time-consuming and expensive process. Here, we demonstrate a digital teat-end condition assessment by way of deep learning. A total of 398 digital images from dairy cows' udders were collected on 2 commercial farms using a digital camera. The degree of teat-end hyperkeratosis was scored using a 4-point scale. A deep learning network from a transfer learning approach (GoogLeNet; Google Inc., Mountain View, CA) was developed to predict the teat-end condition from the digital images. Teat-end images were split into training (70%) and validation (15%) data sets to develop the network, and then evaluated on the remaining test (15%) data set. The areas under the receiver operator characteristic curves on the test data set for classification scores of normal, smooth, rough, and very rough were 0.778 (0.716-0.833), 0.542 (0.459-0.608), 0.863 (0.788-0.906), and 0.920 (0.803-0.986), respectively. We found that image-based teat-end scoring by way of deep learning is possible and, coupled with improvements in image acquisition and processing, this method can be used to assess teat-end condition in a systematic and efficient manner., (The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. and Fass Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).)

Sea star wasting (SSW) disease describes a condition affecting asteroids that resulted in significant Northeastern Pacific population decline following a mass mortality event in 2013. The etiology of SSW is unresolved. We hypothesized that SSW is a sequela of microbial organic matter remineralization near respiratory surfaces, one consequence of which may be limited O 2 availability at the animal-water interface. Microbial assemblages inhabiting tissues and at the asteroid-water interface bore signatures of copiotroph proliferation before SSW onset, followed by the appearance of putatively facultative and strictly anaerobic taxa at the time of lesion genesis and as animals died. SSW lesions were induced in Pisaster ochraceus by enrichment with a variety of organic matter (OM) sources. These results together illustrate that depleted O 2 conditions at the animal-water interface may be established by heterotrophic microbial activity in response to organic matter loading. SSW was also induced by modestly (∼39%) depleted O 2 conditions in aquaria, suggesting that small perturbations in dissolved O 2 may exacerbate the condition. SSW susceptibility between species was significantly and positively correlated with surface rugosity, a key determinant of diffusive boundary layer thickness. Tissues of SSW-affected individuals collected in 2013-2014 bore δ 15 N signatures reflecting anaerobic processes, which suggests that this phenomenon may have affected asteroids during mass mortality at the time. The impacts of enhanced microbial activity and subsequent O 2 diffusion limitation may be more pronounced under higher temperatures due to lower O 2 solubility, in more rugose asteroid species due to restricted hydrodynamic flow, and in larger specimens due to their lower surface area to volume ratios which affects diffusive respiratory potential., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Aquino, Besemer, DeRito, Kocian, Porter, Raimondi, Rede, Schiebelhut, Sparks, Wares and Hewson.)

Because infections with pathogenic bacteria entering the mammary gland through the teat canal are the most common cause of mastitis in dairy cows, sustaining the integrity of the teat canal and its adjacent tissues is critical to resist infection. The ability to monitor teat tissue condition is therefore a key prerequisite for udder health management in dairy cows. However, to date, routine assessment of teat-end condition is limited to cow-side visual inspection, making the evaluation a time-consuming and expensive process. Here, we illustrate and demonstrate a method for assessing teat-end condition of dairy cows through digital images and software. A digital workflow has been designed where images of dairy cow teats are obtained and processed to display individual teats, and the cow and teat images are labeled and displayed through a graphical user interface. The interface then allows an evaluator to assess quarter- and cow-level teat-end condition and store the results for review and future analysis. The digital workflow permits several advantages such as the ability to perform remote teat-end condition assessments, and assess inter- and intrarater variability of teat-end condition scoring. We demonstrate the image-based teat-end condition assessment of 194 dairy cows that also had cow-side teat-end condition assessments by 2 expert evaluators. Weighted Cohen's kappa statistic (κ) was computed to measure the evaluators' concordance of categorical scores of quarter- and cow-level assessments when using cow-side and image-based assessments. Substantial agreement (0.61 ≤ κ ≤ 0.80) was observed between an evaluator's cow-side and image-based assessments at the quarter and cow level. Moderate agreement (0.41 ≤ κ ≤ 0.60) was observed between evaluators when using image-based assessments at the quarter and cow level. Near perfect agreement (κ = 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.78-1.00) was observed between evaluators when using cow-side assessments at the quarter level, and substantial agreement (κ = 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.53-0.79) was observed when using cow-side assessments at the cow level. This suggests that image-based teat-end condition classification is possible, and coupled with improvements in image acquisition and image processing, this method can be used to assess teat-end condition in a systematic and convenient manner., (The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. and Fass Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).)

Mechanical forces during machine milking of dairy cows evoke circulatory impairment of the teat tissue that may affect the teats' defense mechanisms against mastitis pathogens. Ample research describes dimensional changes of different teat traits after machine milking, whereas reports that describe changes in blood circulation of dairy cows' teats are limited. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to (1) describe changes in teat blood circulation that occur after pre-milking teat stimulation and machine milking and (2) study the effect of 2 different milking liners on machine milking-induced changes in teat blood flow. In a randomized trial, Holstein dairy cows were stratified by parity, stage of lactation, and average daily milk yield during the previous week, and allocated to 1 of 2 treatment groups. Treatment consisted of 1 milking observation with either a round or multisided concave milking liner. Teat scans were taken of the left front and the right hind teats using power Doppler ultrasonography. Imaging occurred before pre-milking udder preparation (T1), after completion of pre-milking udder preparation but before milking-unit attachment (T2), and immediately after unit detachment (T3). Perfusion intensity measurements from teat scans were performed with a commercially available software program. Data from 109 cows were analyzed. A general linear mixed model showed differences in perfusion intensity between time points. Least squares means (95% confidence intervals) for T1, T2, and T3, respectively, were 0.035% (0.026-0.047), 0.124% (0.093-0.164), and 0.095% (0.073-0.124). Conversely, no statistically significant differences between treatment groups were observed. We conclude that teat blood circulation is subjected to several influences, including inherent circulatory regulation mechanisms, as well as extrinsic factors such as machine milking. Future research is warranted to decipher the magnitude of their influence and to further our understanding of how these changes relate to the susceptibility to intramammary infection and milking performance., (Copyright © 2020 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Ample research has described the assessment of dimensional changes for different teat traits, whereas diagnostic techniques to reliably assess blood circulation in teats of dairy cows are limited. Here, we describe the development and evaluation of a scanning technique to quantify blood flow in teats of dairy cows using power Doppler ultrasonography. In 2 consecutive trials, 384 teat scans [trial 1, n = 256 (sagittal plane, n = 128; transverse plane, n = 128); trial 2, n = 128 (transverse plane)] from 16 cows were obtained by the same 2 operators. Perfusion intensity from single images (trial 1) and video images (trial 2) were assessed using a commercially available software program. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) were used to assess interoperator reproducibility (agreement between measurements performed by different operators) and intraoperator repeatability (agreement between measurements performed by the same operator). In trial 1, interoperator ICC and CCC indicated poor agreement (ICC ≤0.26, CCC ≤0.26). Intraoperator ICC and CCC demonstrated poor agreement between duplicate measurements within operators (ICC ≤0.19, CCC ≤0.19). Modifications after trial 1 included (1) a different ultrasound device, (2) analysis of video clips rather than single images, (3) restriction to 1 sectional plane (i.e., transverse), and (4) a scanning sequence such that repeated scans within operators were measured one after another. Through these modifications, intraoperator repeatability in trial 2 yielded fair to good agreement, with intraoperator ICC and CCC over both operators ranging from 0.44 to 0.70 and from 0.57 to 0.69, respectively, whereas interoperator ICC and CCC showed poor agreement (ICC = 0.35, CCC = 0.34). We conclude that repeatable measurements of blood perfusion intensity of teats in dairy cows can be attained with power Doppler ultrasonography. Power Doppler ultrasonography is a suitable tool to quantify slow flow in small vessels and may be an acceptable diagnostic technique to assess changes in blood circulation that result from machine milking in teats of dairy cows, although further research is necessary to validate this hypothesis., (Copyright © 2019 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

As magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) becomes more readily available and more frequently utilized in the assessment of canine carpal lameness, both normal variations and early pathologic conditions must be recognized to optimize patient care and provide accurate diagnosis. On cross sectional studies of the canine carpus, cyst-like lesions have been detected at the dorsolateral aspect of the intermedioradial carpal bone. The cross-sectional imaging and histologic properties of these lesions have not been described. The purpose of this observational study is to evaluate the MRI and histologic features of these cyst-like lesions in a cohort of clinically sound dogs. It was hypothesized that the lesions would show features similar to intraosseous ganglion cysts of the human wrist. Twenty-five cadaveric canine carpi were obtained and a total of 13 lesions were detected on MRI. Based on MRI, six carpi with lesions of varying size and one normal carpus were submitted for histological evaluation. Five of the abnormal carpi had nonarticular cyst-like lesions; one specimen with a positive magnetic resonance image for a cyst-like lesion had no cyst-like lesion on histology. Conspicuity of a medium-size lesion as evaluated on radiographs was poor. Given the presence of these nonarticular cyst-like lesions in a population of clinically sound patients, their clinical importance is uncertain. The development of these lesions may relate to altered mechanics or genetic predispositions, requiring additional study., (© 2018 American College of Veterinary Radiology.)