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Introduction: Clinical symptoms are mostly unspecific in hepatic diseases, thus most clinical examinations are of limited benefit in the diagnosis of hepatic diseases and often only general statements can be made about parenchymal damage or loss of function. In contrast, sonography of the liver can provide information about the type of lesion and thus also about the prognosis for the animal. A systematic assessment of organ size, parenchymal, vascular and bile duct system structures can facilitate to make possible findings. Sonography is also used in further diagnostics such as liver biopsy or chole-cystocentesis. This review describes the basic procedure for the sonographic examination in ruminants and camelids on the basis of selected findings relevant to the clinical veterinarian. In addition, potential and limits of additional diagnostics are discussed.

Introduction: Renal cysts are fluid-filled cavities with an epithelial lining that, depending on their size, can cause clinical symptoms and thus require conservative or surgical therapy. Nephrectomy is primarily used in cattle for simple kidney cysts while sclerotherapy is well established in humans and individual case reports have been published in small animal medicine. This case report describes the first successful treatment of a solitary, perirenal cyst using a right-sided laparotomy and intraluminal instillation of 96% ethanol solution in a Swiss Fleckvieh cow. Diagnostics, surgical procedures and aftercare are descripted and risks are compared to other methods. Sclerotherapy is an organ-preserving alternative to nephrectomy that is suitable for buiatric practice, the methodology should be confirmed in subsequent intervention studies.