%0 Journal Article
%T Echocardiography of the normal camel (Camelus dromedaries) heart: technique and cardiac dimensions
%A Mohamed Tharwat
%A Fahd Al-Sobayil
%A Ahmed Ali
%A S¨¦bastien Buczinski
%J BMC Veterinary Research
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1746-6148-8-130
%X On the right side, when the probe was placed in the 5th or 4th intercostal space (ICS), the caudal long-axis four-chamber view of the ventricles, atria, and the interventricular septum was obtained. Placing the probe slightly more cranially in the 4th ICS, the caudal long-axis four-chamber view and the caudal long-axis view of the left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) were imaged. In 7 camels, a hybrid view between a ¡°four-chamber¡± and ¡°LVOT view¡± was imaged from the same position. The short-axis view of the ventricles was obtained in the 4th ICS where the transducer was rotated between 0¡ã and 25¡ã. Placement of the transducer in the 3rd ICS allowed visualisation of the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT). On the left side, when the probe was placed in the 5th or 4th ICS, a four-chamber view was obtained. The LVOT is imaged in the 4th ICS and the RVOT was seen from the 3rd ICS.This study showed that it is possible to obtain good-quality echocardiograms in adult camels and provide normal cardiac dimensions. This study could be used as a reference for further studies concerning camels with cardiac diseases.The dromedary camel is important species in Africa, Middle-East and Australia. Despite their valuable use as draft animals, it is also used for milk and meat production. In the northern hemisphere, it is mainly kept as a companion animal or found in the circus or zoological collections, and can therefore have a worldwide veterinary importance due to the relatively high value [1]. In the camel, heart diseases include pericarditis, vegetative valvular endocarditis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, necrotic myocarditis and congenital defects including septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus, transposition of the aorta and pulmonary artery, persistent aortic trunk, and persistent right aortic arch and sarcocystosis [1-7].The heart diseases listed above are mostly diagnosed at slaughterhouses or incidentally discovered at postmortem examination [3], showing that the diagn
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/8/130