McNewfie
New member
Hi,
I just took two of my Newfoundlands (ages 20 months and 13 months) in to have PennHIP radiographs done today at Cornell University. The orthopedist told me that they were too old to PennHIP and it should be done by 8 months of age for an accurate reading. I have NEVER heard this before and have had a number of Newfs done there (even over 2 years) and was not told this. I was always told that you actually get a better reading the closer you get to 2 years? I found this on the PennHIP site:
"How Old Must My Dog be to Have a PennHIP Radiograph?
PennHIP has studied the efficacy of this method from the eight weeks up to three years of age. The PennHIP method can be reliably performed on a dog as young as 16 weeks old. Passive hip laxity at 16 weeks correlates highly with later hip laxity. In other words, a dog's hip laxity at 16 weeks will be much the same at one year, two years or even three years. The accuracy of laxity measurements for German Shepherd Dogs less than 16 weeks of age is not high enough to be of clinical use. Other breeds require study to determine the earliest reliable age of evaluation.
The looser the joint, as determined by the PennHIP method, the greater is the chance that the hip will develop DJD. (The standard hip-extended method can actually mask true hip joint laxity). There are obvious advantages to screening dogs for hip joint laxity at 4 months of age (or six months, 1 year, etc.) as opposed to waiting until 2 years of age. The reliability of the PennHIP method slightly improves with age, with one year 1 year being marginally superior to 6 months, which in turn is marginally better than 4 months. For all dogs, we recommend when possible, to use the mean (average) of repeated evaluations to get a more reliable estimate of a dog's hip laxity status (phenotype)."
So unless I'm am reading this wrong, the vet at Cornell is mistaken. I have a call in to PennHIP to talk to someone about this, but thought I'd ask others for their opinons/experiences.
Thanks!
I just took two of my Newfoundlands (ages 20 months and 13 months) in to have PennHIP radiographs done today at Cornell University. The orthopedist told me that they were too old to PennHIP and it should be done by 8 months of age for an accurate reading. I have NEVER heard this before and have had a number of Newfs done there (even over 2 years) and was not told this. I was always told that you actually get a better reading the closer you get to 2 years? I found this on the PennHIP site:
"How Old Must My Dog be to Have a PennHIP Radiograph?
PennHIP has studied the efficacy of this method from the eight weeks up to three years of age. The PennHIP method can be reliably performed on a dog as young as 16 weeks old. Passive hip laxity at 16 weeks correlates highly with later hip laxity. In other words, a dog's hip laxity at 16 weeks will be much the same at one year, two years or even three years. The accuracy of laxity measurements for German Shepherd Dogs less than 16 weeks of age is not high enough to be of clinical use. Other breeds require study to determine the earliest reliable age of evaluation.
The looser the joint, as determined by the PennHIP method, the greater is the chance that the hip will develop DJD. (The standard hip-extended method can actually mask true hip joint laxity). There are obvious advantages to screening dogs for hip joint laxity at 4 months of age (or six months, 1 year, etc.) as opposed to waiting until 2 years of age. The reliability of the PennHIP method slightly improves with age, with one year 1 year being marginally superior to 6 months, which in turn is marginally better than 4 months. For all dogs, we recommend when possible, to use the mean (average) of repeated evaluations to get a more reliable estimate of a dog's hip laxity status (phenotype)."
So unless I'm am reading this wrong, the vet at Cornell is mistaken. I have a call in to PennHIP to talk to someone about this, but thought I'd ask others for their opinons/experiences.
Thanks!
