CT scans

In the lead up to this year's Breeders' and Melbourne Cups, PET and CT units have been at the crux of dashed dreams, with several horses scratched from these contests due to unsatisfactory PET and CT scans. But how do veterinarians decide what's satisfactory and what isn't? It's in the last few years these technologies have emerged at the cutting edge of efforts to determine the root cause of subtle lameness in racehorses. This period has proven a fast learning curve for diagnosticians--just ask Ryan Carpenter, a SoCal-based vet who...

Seeking a full stop to the spate of high-profile fatalities in the race that stops Australia, Racing Victoria this year tightened the veterinary screws. The practical rollout of these efforts can hardly be described as an unadulterated success, however. One of these new measures was a precautionary CT scan of all runners in the days leading up to the G1 Melbourne Cup--a target that hit the skids when Racing Victoria's new $1.27-million CT unit suffered a malfunction with the Cup field only half scanned, leaving the rest to be X-rayed...