Bladder stones or uroliths are a common occurrence in animals especially in domestic animals such as dogs and cats.
Bladder stones in dogs x ray.
X ray of bladder stones in a dog.
This isn t unreasonable considering the dog often has accidents in the house or needs to go outside on an hourly basis.
Most stones are radiopaque meaning they show up on the radiographic film as obvious white objects within the urinary bladder.
Your veterinarian may also suspect that your dog has or is at risk for stones based on the presence of crystals struvite or calcium oxalate for example in a fresh sample of urine.
For example if x rays show that there are one or more stones present in the bladder and the results of the urinalysis show the presence of alkaline urine along with numerous struvite crystals your veterinarian may make a presumptive diagnosis of struvite bladder stones and recommend treatment accordingly.
A small percentage of bladder stones such as urate stones or any stone that is tiny do not reflect x rays well and show up best on an ultrasound.
X ray of a struvite bladder stone in a cat.
Occurrence in other species including tortoises has been reported as well.
They should be performed on dogs that show unusual pain when the bladder is palpated dogs that have recurrent haematuria and dysuria or dogs that have.
In other cases the diagnosis of bladder stones in dogs is made or confirmed with abdominal x rays.
Some of the most dramatic x rays i show clients are those that reveal the presence of large stones in their dog s bladder.
A few are radiolucent and they do not show up on x rays.
Most bladder stones are visible on radiographs x rays or a bladder ultrasound examination.