Search

A 4-month-old, male castrated Alpine White goat presented to the University of Guelph, Veterinary Teaching Hospital, with urolithiasis and a ruptured urethra. A tube cystostomy was performed using an indwelling Foley catheter. Postoperatively, the goat remained in good health, and was discharged with the cystostomy catheter in situ. Five weeks following surgery, the goat was noted to pass urine through its urethra. Seven weeks following surgery, the catheter became dislodged and the goat was observed to urinate normally. Six months following surgery, the goat was apparently healthy and urinating normally. Tube cystostomy may be a useful therapeutic option in the management of small ruminants with obstructive urolithiasis with concurrent rupture of the urethra, especially for cases in which treatment cost is a limiting factor.

Since the rate at which blood is delivered to discrete regions of the brain is an essential component of a variety of metabolic, physiological, and pharmacological processes, it is highly desirable to be able to measure regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the brains of living human subjects with a minimal degree of invasiveness. The development of positron emission tomography (PET), and the construction of sensitive instruments with good resolution that are specifically optimized for studies of cerebral function has made this goal attainable. In previous reports from this laboratory, we have described a modified in vivo autoradiographic strategy for measuring rCBF in man. The method is based on the familiar in vitro autoradiographic strategy developed from the Fick principle (Kety 1951; Freygang and Sokoloff 1959; Sakurada et al. 1978). Preliminary validation studies, conducted in animals, showed excellent agreement between the in vivo and in vitro autoradiographic methods. This report reviews the theoretical basis of the method, and describes some practical and theoretical considerations necessary for its successful application. Preliminary results in normal humans are presented.