Petlearnia

Medical Terms

Urethral stricture

A urethral stricture is an abnormal narrowing of the urethra, the tube that goes from the bladder to the outside world and which animals pee through. A urethral stricture often causes urinary issues in pets.

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Arthroscopy

An arthroscopy involves inserting a camera into a joint. It’s a type of keyhole surgery. An arthroscopy can be done for various reasons in pets, but is often used to help with diagnosis.

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Diagnosis of exclusion

A “diagnosis of exclusion” is a diagnosis that is made when all other possible causes of a pet’s clinical signs have been ruled out. It’s necessary when there isn’t a test to confirm one of the causes, so instead we have to rule out other causes of the symptoms to get a diagnosis.

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Body Condition Score [BCS]

A body condition score (BCS) is a subjective measurement of your pet’s body shape, and allows us to estimate body fat. In cats and dogs, a BCS is given on a 1-9 or 1-5 scale. 1 is the lowest BCS, which indicates your pet is too thin. 9 (or 5, on the smaller scale) is the highest, which indicates your pet is too fat. 3/5 and 4-5/9 is perfect weight.

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Prescribing Cascade

The prescribing cascade is a decision-tree framework used by veterinarians to select which prescription product to use when there isn’t an authorised veterinary medicine available. The cascade means that human drugs and medications meant for other species can be used in pets, but only if certain legal requirements are satisfied.

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Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic resistance is when a certain antibiotic stops working on a group of bacteria because they’ve developed genes to protect themselves. Bacteria can be resistant to one antibiotic or several (multi-drug resistance).

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