hello and welcome in this short session about the radiographic anatomy of the abdomen in the dog and cat my name is pit mantis and in the next few minutes we will go through the various abdominal organs and how they appear normally radiographically most people haven't realized that we don't always see all the organs all the structures in the abdomen structures we commonly see include the stomach liver urinary bladder small intestine and colon especially the descending colon structures that we only see partially includes the splen especially in Cuts is not so often visible and usually it's visible when it is Big K they may not be clearly visible and that is fine and the prostate gland other that we seldom ever see other organs are the pancreas the adrenal glands that in cats can be mineralized so basically they may be able to be seen normally because in cats mineralization can be normal of the adrenals while in dog is bad news the ovaries and the mesenteric lymph nodes so these are organs that we seldom see see unless they are abnormal starting with the liver the liver is crano ventrally and normally is within the rib cage and that is an important factor another important factor is the codal edge of the liver is quite pointy if you like quite sharp and the measurement we can use is the gastric axis bringing a line from the fondus to the PIP lus this should be from vertical to the spine up to parallel to the ribs so as long as this axis is within this so we go a line from the fondus to the pylor that will be the gastric axis and then this should be from vertical up to parallel within that angle that is usually normal now if the liver margin extends beyond the rib cage but is still sharp consider the possibility of very inspiratory radiograph not necessarily a very big liver the splen we see the tail of the splin is usually ventrally very commonly in the dog triangularly or if you have a video DV view it may be seen behind the stomach on the left hand side the head of the splen in cats rarely we see that and usually if we see it it's a just usually SP though uh your information indicate that we can see it also in normal Cuts without any spleen omegal the stomach the appearance varies according to dependency remember the stomach is like a j if that is dorsal that's vental that's left and that's right and air always goes up so if the animal is on his back all the air will come down here if the animal is on the right side all the air air will go on the left so in the fondus and the body if the animal lies on the vental aspect all the air will go D so in the Fus or if it lies on the left all the air will go actually to the right the py so depends how it lies and how much air we have in there we may see it here we have a right lateral view so most of the air goes to the left so fondus and body of the stomach sometimes it's useful to identify a torsion like that usually doesn't go beyond the last ribbon that is a rule of the thumb sometimes you get a question like where do we cut the limit when we stop calling the stomach full of something and we call it dilated and that is the last rib so if the stomach extends beyond the last rib then this is dilated the pyloric is near to the midline and to the right of the dog or in the cut is mostly on the midline on the ventro dorsal view small in testing we can see all over individual segments cannot be identified okay normally we measure the diameter and the diameter of the small intestine cannot be wider than the height of a mid lber vertebra or twice the width of a rib so small intestine less than height of body of mid labber vertebrae or less than twice the width of a rib in the cut it should be more than 12 mm or the central part of The L4 so we can measure this is a cut here we can see how the line comes away uh how the vertebrae look like we measure seven H six 5 for measure the height of the body and this small should be less like it is in this example large intestin the is c-shape usually we see at the level of about L3 okay you can see it here is c-shape so if you see it don't worry it is small in the T in the cut and is commonly not visible radiographically the normal colon which usually we can see at the back the descending colon is not more in diameter than the length of L7 something to use if in doubt okay here we can actually see as the Clone goes back should be more than that we have contast studies to help us especially with the stomach and intestine especially barium solo for upper GI tra barium Ena for the colon we don't normally do them now now because they're messy and because now we have other techniques like CT and of course double Contra especially for the stomach to see the actual uh surface of the mucosa we get information with cont about the location wall thickness and motility don't forget it's very tricky to evaluate the wall thickness on a survey radiograph because fluid in the Lumen or soft tissue in gesta May silhouette with a wall give the wrong impression of thickness so for that you need contrast or another technique like ultrasound or CT to provide you more information but you can certainly measure how dilated it looks kidneys not normally seen urer normally not seen so for the kidneys tors retrop peronal in the dog is between the 13 thoracic and second larar in the cat between the first and fourth Lumber while the left kidney is second to Fourth Lumber in the dog that's left second to five in the cut now we can measure on the ventro dorsal view the length of the second Lumber vertebrae and in the dog it's 2 and A2 to 3 and A2 while in the cat is to 1.8 to 2.4 but only on the ventro dorsal view don't confuse and do it in any other view you will get wrong results Urus we don't normally see them but if they're dilated or they have a calcul we may see part of the Urus of course we can see them with contast studies we will see like an intravenous urogram or as it called excretory urogram in which case we put contrast in the vein and initially we can see like here immediately and in 5 minutes the kidneys we draw it a little bit better highlight it we can start seeing now in the 5 minutes the uers as they come down and later on we can follow and see them as they enter into the bladder so that helps us identify the renal pelvis that should be small the Urus and the bladder and the number to remember is usually 2 mm the renal pelvis should be up to 2 mm in diameter the urer up to 2 mm in diameter the wall thickness of the urinary bladder up to 2 mm if the bladder is full not if it is empty now the bladder is discret of tissue opacity it's further on the back we can actually see it's cranial to the pubis ventral to the rectum and descending column the urethra we don't normally see them survey radiographs again for the urethra we will need contrast and here is a cogram we can see a positive contrast so we filled it with iodin contrast and a double contrast histogram don't forget the wall should not be more than 2 mm in a full uh urinary bladder retrograde urethrogram to see actually the urethra as it goes in and vagina urethrogram in females you see the folic at here we fill the vagina and then the urethra and that is how they should appear normally the prostate is dorsal to the pubis ventral to the leum and depends on the bladder position initially it's within the pelvic Canal so it's a little bit trickier three four years comes more cranially into the peronal cavity and one rule of the thumb you can use is that the size of the prostate should be less than 2/3 of the pelvic Inlet or if you like less than 70% the distance between the pubic reim and the sacral Promontory okay so check the pelvis brly to third prostate should be less than that if more than that it is Big uterus and ovaries we don't see them on survey radiographs seen especially a non-gravid female if it is pregnant of course we see the uterus or if it is abnormal as dilated we even see the skeleton SCS in obese dogs and cats because they have a lot of fat and this we know fat is a little bit less than soft tissue we may be seen on a lateral survey radiograph but that is the exception thank you again for your time going through the abdominal organs and I hope you find this small video helpful for you thank you e