The evolving use of post-mortem veterinary imaging in a university specialist hospital

Abstract

• The evolving use of post mortem imaging in veterinary medicine. • Post-mortem imaging can assist in finding a cause of death in veterinary medicine. • Current used modalities in veterinary post-mortem imaging. Post-mortem imaging (PMI) is a rapidly expanding field in human medicine. In veterinary medicine the literature published on PMI is limited to a few small case series and single case reports. This retrospective study investigated the use of PMI at a university veterinary hospital over a ten-year period (January 2010–March 2020). Imaging studies were analysed with documentation of the modality used, the cause of death and if the study was requested for medicolegal reasons. There was a five fold increase in PMI between the first five years (2010–2014) and the last five years (2015–2020). The modality with the greatest increase in use was post mortem computed tomography (PMCT) with a six-fold increase. PMI is an evolving field in veterinary radiology with rapid growth in use observed over the last 10 years.