She was asked to present the research project which she undertook while studying at the Royal Veterinary College.

Outlined below is a brief summary of the study:

The objectives of the study were to compare the measurements of lymph nodes of dogs suffering from lymphoma taken using calipers during a physical exam, and measurements taken from a CT scan. The CT images were looked at in two different ways- firstly in the transverse slices taken along the dog’s body from nose to tail, and secondly by rotating the images so they aligned with the lymph node and we could then take slices from the front to the back of the lymph node.

The study then applied these measurements to the response categorisation protocol commonly used, this is designed to help us understand from the measurements if a patient’s disease is classed as stable, progressive or responding to treatment.

We expected the CT measurements to be smaller than the caliper measurements, as we can exclude the surrounding fat and skin. The results showed that for the long-axis measurements the normal CT measurements were not very different to the caliper measurements, however for the adjusted images the measurements were significantly greater than the caliper measurements. For the short-axis both types of CT measurement were significantly smaller than the caliper measurements taken from a physical exam.

The statistical graphs demonstrated the best agreement between the short axis caliper measurement and the short axis of the adjusted images. As the adjusted images should give us the most accurate measurements, this suggests that perhaps we should routinely measure the short axis of the affected lymph nodes on physical examination of dogs as opposed to the long axis.

The results also found there was overall no significant difference in the response classification using the different measurements, but that there were some variations for individual patients. This is important to be aware of as a change in response classification could change the course of treatment.

As this was a very small study performed using only 14 dogs the results would have to be replicated in a larger study before the findings could be put into widespread clinical practice.