[belindaY]

Originally Posted by Ladymom

If you read my response in post #43, I posted the statistics for ultrasound reliability.

U of T estimates they are 80% reliable, Dr. Center/Cornell as low as 60%.

Hepatic Vascular Disorders - WSAVA 2006 Congress

The University of Tennessee - College of Veterinary Medicine - Portosystemic Shunts

The OP was lucky the technician was able to see the shunt on the ultrasound.

Thanks, I did read that, and have seen this info elsewhere. It sounds so unreliable as to make one wonder why it is used at all for liver shunt diagnostics. The reason I'm harping on this is that I'm involved in a case where the BAT was fairly low--51 post--but the ultrasound report says "there appears to be a large vein...etc." Based on that they want to do surgery and I'm advising against it because BAT 51 is inconsistent with a "large shunt" diagnosed with ultrasound, a known unreliable test. In the puppy in this thread the BAT of 288 is consistent with L/S, making the ultrasound look more believable. Am I way off track here?