Radiograph reporting service

A free service to support our local general practice vets in managing orthopaedic cases efficiently and providing the highest level of care for your patients.

  • Free verbal reporting service
  • An orthopaedic surgeon’s interpretation of your radiograph with follow-up advice to help you manage the case

This service is only for veterinary practices with no orthopaedic surgeon on-site. Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on any queries relating to surgery previously performed at another practice, or on cases that are currently under the care of another orthopaedic referral surgeon.

How?

Email digital radiographs to [email protected].

Please allow five working days for non-urgent advice. If you believe an urgent opinion is required, please state this clearly in your email and call us on 01483 423761 to ensure it is reviewed urgently. Without an accompanying call, there may be a delay in providing advice.

Digital radiograph guidelines

Please provide the following:

  • A brief summary of the patient’s condition, with your clinical examination findings in the body of your email.
  • Up to six radiographs relevant to the condition under investigation. We prefer you to localise the condition before imaging and correctly position the patient for image acquisition. Please note that poorly positioned radiographs are returned without interpretation.

For guidance on images for investigation where localisation is not possible, we typically use the following survey radiographs:

Pelvic limbs: Lateral LS spine (centred L7), VD pelvis (femur extended and parallel), left and right lateral crus including stifle and tarsus (centred stifle), left and right caudocranial tarsus and pes. Additional views with lesion localisation would include VD pelvis (abducted aka frogleg) and left and right caudocranial stifle and crus.

Thoracic limbs: Lateral left and right shoulder, lateral flexed and cranio caudal elbow, AP left and right carpus and manus; additional views with lesion localisation would include left and right caudocranial shoulder, left and right lateral carpus and manus, left and right lateral extended elbow. Orthogonal views are always preferred.

  • Pet’s name and owner’s surname
  • Practice name, vet’s name and contact number
  • Radiographs in DICOM or JPEG format (high resolution) – files larger than 50MB in total must be sent via WeTransfer or Dropbox.

Reporting will be delayed by the submission of low-quality images so please try and send the highest quality in the first instance.

We do not offer interpretation of MRI or CT images.

Fitzpatrick Referrals