(Describer) Six people carry an unconscious lion into a building. Dr. Randy Junge .
♪
This morning we had
our adult male lion, Tomo,
up for a CT, a CAT scan--
literally a CAT scan
on a big cat.
That's always fun.
Tomo had an infection
in his jaw.
He had a tooth removed,
and the area didn't heal,
so we were concerned
that there might be
something more involved
in that area
than just a bad tooth.
What's really exciting is
this CT technology
gives us the ability to do
state-of-the-art diagnostics.
There are only half a dozen zoos
in the country
that have CT machines.
The advantage of computerized
tomography is that it gives us
a three-dimensional image
of the animal.
So if you think
about an X-ray,
it shows a two-dimensional
picture through our patient.
So something like a turtle,
or an alligator, or a porcupine
with a hard outside,
all we get is a picture
of that hard outside.
A CT unit will actually cut
slices through the patient
so we can look sort of
head to toe at the animal,
and we're able to see things
that we can't see
with a routine X-ray.
(Describer) A scanning machine.
This table is made for humans.
So it's rated up to 500 pounds,
which would get most humans,
but many of my zoo patients
are going to go over that.
So Tomo is 450 pounds.
He is pushing the limit.
The machine groaned
and grumbled a little bit,
but we were able
to get the image done.
Another important part
of imaging
is to get in position
just correctly.
We need him perfectly straight
and lying in a natural position.
For a human, they would say,
"Lay this way,
put your arms and legs here,
hold still, hold your breath,"
which you obviously can't do
with a large animal,
especially under anesthesia.
So, lots of shifting,
and pushing,
and arranging,
and getting him just right,
but in the end
our images came out perfectly,
and we got
very good diagnostic images.
(Describer) Scanning the lion.
So, going into this procedure,
we were a little concerned
about Tomo.
He's older.
He's almost 15 years old.
He's had this dental issue
for several weeks.
We were concerned
that it might have spread,
it might have been more serious
than just a localized area.
Certainly all his caretakers,
all the people that know him
were very concerned
about his well-being.
It was very nice to be able
to do this procedure
with our CT and our exam
to realize now
that we know
that the fungal infection
is located just
to that one tooth area.
So he'll be on an extended
course of treatment,
but now we know specifically
what the problem is,
specifically
what the diagnosis is,
and how we need to proceed
with the treatment.
(Describer) A syringe in his mouth.
So we're really excited now
with this unit,
that it gives us a whole lot
of really good
technological abilities
that we didn't have before.
It brings our medicine up
another level
to provide
for the Columbus Zoo animals.
(Describer) Pointing to an image.
The really exciting thing is
that this lion's name is Tomo,
and he got a tomo-graphy.
Get it? Isn't that fun?
(Describer) He grins.
[laughter]
(speaker)
That's pretty good.
(Describer) Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Visit us at ColumbusZoo.org Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Accessibility provided by the
U.S. Department of Education.
