Pathology

Here at the Grange Veterinary Clinic we can provide both in-house and external pathology tests for many of our patients. What is “in-house pathology” you may ask?

In-house pathology allows us to use blood or urine samples taken from our patients to analyse the animals biochemistry, haematology and urine to quickly assess the condition of the patient. We can analyse the samples using machines that we have on the premises, so results can be accessed much sooner – sometimes within a couple of minutes!

We have three state of the art pathology machines which allow us to run an extensive catalogue of in-house tests. These include:

–       ProBNP; a marker used for assessing the severity of heart failure

–       Vaccine Titre Testing; we can test your pet’s antibody levels for the diseases we vaccinate against so you can opt to vaccinate less frequently. (Please note: in dogs, there is currently no test for parainfluenza or bordetella bronchiseptica (AKA ‘kennel cough’), so annual vaccinating against these diseases is still advised)

–       Cortisol; we can test cortisol levels in-house, giving us the ability to perform ACTH Stimulation & Low Dose Dex Suppression Tests (LDDST) in-house. Saving our clients hundreds of dollars in external laboratory fees.

–       Phenobarbital; we can check phenobarbital levels in-house for our epileptic patients so we can adjust doses (if needed) quickly and accurately

–       T4; we can test thyroid levels for dogs and cats in-house. Once again, meaning we can adjust medication doses quickly and accurately if required.

In addition to these, we can also test for most common conditions (liver/kidney levels, urine concentration, checking for urinary crystals, complete body count (CBC), pancreatic levels and blood glucose.

For some patients, it is preferred to send the sample to an external lab. This may be due to consistency of results (i.e. if the test has previously been run at the external lab, repeating it at the same lab/using the same machines is more appropriate) or if the veterinarian needs results for parameters that we are unable to check in-house. Sending to an external laboratory can also give us additional information from the pathologists who run the tests which can be beneficial to diagnosing complicated cases.