We’re really excited to be able to offer a new method of blood testing for kidney disease in pets.
I mentioned in a recent story that we recommend ‘pre-anaesthetic’ blood testing in all pets undergoing surgery. Any of you who come to us on a regular basis for your ongoing pet healthcare would know that we also recommend regular, routine blood screening, particularly in older dogs and cats. We do this so that we can get a head start on any disease process that’s starting up in your pet. Early intervention almost always results in better outcomes so the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can get onto treatment.
One of the advances in testing that we’re really excited about at Gawler Animal Hospital is a new test for the early detection of kidney disease. The parameters that we currently use (Urea, Creatinine and urinary concentration levels) are very good but won’t show much change until the patient has lost over 60% of healthy kidney cells. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to restore function of those ‘lost’ cells and our treatment is based around maintaining the 30-40% of remaining cells.
A new blood test, known as SDMA, is able to detect kidney disease when there is still 65-75% of normal function and this leaves us with a lot more scope to provide a much longer life expectancy in our kidney patients.
For us, there’s a lot to love about this new test and I’d like to tell you a bit more about it:
- It’s a simple blood test and we can do this ‘in-house’
- We can run this test on a very small amount of blood
- Our ‘in-house’ lab is now capable of running the test
- It’s really quick
- Because we do this on our own lab facility, we’ll have the results within an hour or less
- We don’t need any extra blood if we’re already doing any kind of blood testing so there’s no additional trauma for your pet.
- It’s very affordable
- If we’re already doing some other blood testing, SDMA only adds a few dollars to your invoice
- Given the information we gain from this test, it’s great value!
- We’ve now added SDMA to all of our routine blood screening profiles, including pre-anaesthetic testing
- We felt it was well worthwhile so all our profiles now include this
- It makes the screening much more effective as a result
- Although kidney disease is not so common in young pets, it still occurs and we definitely need to know about it early in the piece
- It will rapidly become a standard in most screening tests performed by Australian vets
- As always, we try to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to looking after your furry friends and we feel this will be very important.
If you’d like to hear more about this new test, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Alternatively, our vets will chat to you about it next time you’re in for a routine health check for your four-legged friend. If you need to make an appointment, give our lovely receptionists a call on 8522 3500 or go online and book directly.
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