Measuring Bone Density

Assessing Bone Density in Companion Animals

The assessment of bone density in people is a commonly undertaken to evaluate bone health in patients at risk of bone loss through diseases such as osteoporosis.

These approaches are under-developed for veterinary patients. Consequently, we have developed a Computed Tomography based approach that allows us to screen dogs for low bone density and have a developed a novel osteodensitometry to objective quantify the density of bones. The bottom figure is a CT image of a dog skull showing that the skull is very thin when compared to a healthy skull on the top.