JP Punke¹, LE Peycke² , SK Kerwin² , DA Hulse², SC Budsberg¹.
¹University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States, ²Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, United States

ACVS Abstract 2007 

Canine elbow dysplasia (CED) is a complex of at least three developmental orthopedic diseases of the canine cubital joint. Radiographs alone can be insensitive for the diagnosis of CED. A retrospective study was conducted in an effort to identify cases of clinical forelimb lameness caused by elbow pathology in the absence of radiographic signs of elbow disease.

Cases presenting with undiagnosed forelimb lameness were included. Radiographs of the affected elbows were interpreted as normal by a board certified radiologist. Additional computer-assisted tomography (CT) or nuclear scintigraphy were conducted in each case with a positive finding of elbow pathology.

Finally, elbow pathology was confirmed by surgical exploration of the affected elbow, by either arthrotomy or arthroscopy. Ten cases with clinical elbow lameness were identified. The affected animals were all young to middle aged large breed dogs. In all cases, advanced imaging proved useful in affirming suspicions of elbow pathology. These suspicions were confirmed by arthroscopy. All bilaterally affected cases had bilateral fragmentation of the medial coronoid process (FCP). In the six unilateral cases, four had only FCPs and two had osteochondral defects of the medial condyle of the humerus in addition to FCPs.

Nuclear scintigraphy and CT proved to be useful advanced imaging techniques in identifying elbow pathology compared to arthroscopy. Improvement in all ten cases suggests that elbow pathology was the primary cause of forelimb lameness in these animals. Advanced imaging techniques should be considered in cases of suspected CED without radiographic changes.