Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Measurement of Heart Size in the Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) by Vertebral Scale System

Rock O. Ukaha, Jessica I. Iloh

Journal of Scientific Research and Reports · pp. 1–7 · Published 8 Mar 2018

10.9734/JSRR/2018/35182

Abstract

Aim: Cardiac and pericardial diseases are frequently associated with a change in the size of the heart. Therefore, the radiographic evaluation of the heart size is invaluable in the determination of the extent and severity of the cardiac or pericardial disorder. This research was aimed at establishing reference values of vertebral heart size (VHS) of normal New Zealand White (NZW) rabbit. Materials and Methods: Heart sizes of ten (5 females, 5 males) clinically normal NZW rabbits were studied.  A right lateral thoracic radiograph was obtained from each research animal. In each of the radiographs, the cardiac long axis (LA) was measured in centimeters, transposed onto the thoracic vertebrae from T4, and the result read in vertebral lengths. The cardiac short axis (SA) was similarly converted to lengths of thoracic vertebrae. The VHS was then obtained from the addition of the LA and SA thoracic vertebral lengths. Results: Mean plus or minus standard error of mean (M±SEM) VHS was 8.5±0.3 vertebrae, and the difference between male and female VHSs was insignificant. Conclusion: Clinically, VHS is objective and easily applicable in radiographic determination of heart size.

Lateral view measurement of heart and thoracic vertebrae vertebral heart size new zealand white rabbit.

References (12)

  1. 1 Cardiovascular System [DOI]
  2. 2 Vertebral scale system to measure canine heart size in radiographs [DOI]
  3. 3 Laboratory Animal Anaesthesia [DOI]
  4. 4 Vertebral scale system to measure heart size in radiographs of cats [DOI]
  5. 5 Radiographic Heart Size and Its Rate of Increase as Tests for Onset of Congestive Heart Failure in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels with Mitral Valve Regurgitation [DOI]
  6. 6 Measurement of the cardiac silhouette in psittacines [DOI]
  7. 7 Use of the Vertebral Heart Score in Coughing Dogs with Chronic Degenerative Mitral Valve Disease [DOI]
  8. 8 Hypoadrenocorticism (Addison's disease) [DOI]
  9. 9 Vertebral Scale System to Measure Heart Size in Thoracic Radiographs of Turkish Shepherd (Kangal) Dogs
  10. 10 Cardiopathies congénitales de l’adulte : conduite diagnostique [DOI]
  11. 11 Platelet attachment stimulates endothelial cell regeneration after arterial injury [DOI]
  12. 12 Neoplastic transformation of rabbit cells by murine sarcoma viruses [DOI]

Cited by 7

Diagnostic Imaging

Molly Varga Smith · Textbook of Rabbit Medicine · 2023

Modelling the interaction between stem cells derived cardiomyocytes patches and host myocardium to aid non-arrhythmic engineered heart tissue design

Damiano Fassina, Caroline M. Costa, Stefano Longobardi · PLOS Computational Biology · 2022

Vertebral heart score and cardiothoracic ratio in Wistar rats

Elif DOĞAN, Sıtkıcan OKUR, Armağan HAYIRLI · Ankara Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Dergisi · 2022

Showing 3 of 7 known citations — external sources report more than can currently be individually listed.

Related research

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

8

Page views

0

PDF downloads

0

Outbound clicks

7

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.