November 20, 2024
Cat Scan Or Lab Test Anyone?
There is a fairly old joke about a bloke going to a doctor complaining of a mystery illness. The doctor is stumped so he turns to a cat who paws at the man, slowly shakes her head and walks off. The doctor then asks a Labrador to give the man the once over. The Labrador sniffs the patient, shakes his head, and leaves the room. The doc then hands the patient a bill for £1000. The bloke is furious - he exclaims - you didn’t do anything except let a few animals into the consultation room. The doctor calmly explains that he did. He requested a cat scan and a lab test!
OK, so perhaps the joke isn’t as funny as I thought when I first heard it. But this week in the news we saw a great example of how technology is changing the world of medicine. Headlines related how Google Health had used a computer to diagnose particular cancers as successfully as experienced and skilled doctors. It is an encouraging example of combining powerful technology and medical skills to improve patient outcomes. This got me thinking - could we use tech to help our animal patients?
Change is coming. And it’s exciting. One obvious area that we can use computing power to improve diagnosis is in assessing x-rays, scans and test results. When vets look at these tests, they are evaluating them for patterns. Certain patterns mean that their patients are suffering from this or that disease. If we can train a computer to look for the same patterns, then we can increase the accuracy and rate of diagnosis. A computer is very good at repeating the same task over and over. The computer will not replace the vet, but will add and extra opinion that can be very useful in tricky cases.
Another area which is promising is patient-side diagnostics for disease. If we could take a sample from a patient and run a test telling us what bug is causing that disease within 5 minutes, then we can get treatment started sooner. E.g. at the moment it takes us about a week to culture bacteria, and find out what antibiotic kills them. If we can speed this up, then we can treat the disease quickly, and also save antibiotics by only using the correct one for the first time, every time.
3D printing is perhaps another technology that is already changing how things are done in surgery. Orthopaedics is the science of fixing bones. In order to fix broken bones we often have to fix them together with bits of metal - plates and pins. Every patient is different, so it can be hard to find the correct size of pin to suit the patient. Now, though, we can scan the patient’s bones, measure their length and actually print an implant that is tailor-made for the patient. This can improve the chances of success of any surgery.
These are just a few areas that technology is likely to change patient care in veterinary medicine. It will be interesting to revisit this article in a few years to see if any of my predictions have come true. Watch this space!
