How do you determine if a dog need a hemilaminectomy?

Question

Lauren Adelman · Answer

How do you determine if a dog needs a hemilaminectomy? So a hemilaminectomy is basically disc surgery, so it's a disc removal, so a disc that's compressing a nerve root. So this should only be determined by a veterinarian and typically the people that are doing these surgeries are board-certified surgeons and veterinary neurologists. This is not generally a surgery that your general practitioner would or should be doing, so this is something that needs to be evaluated by one of these specialists. They do a neurologic exam to determine whether or not this is a candidate for medical management first, meaning strict rest and pain medications, or whether it needs to go directly to surgery. And usually the deciding factor is whether or not the patient has a pain response. If they do not have a pain response without surgery, even with surgery, the chances may not be good for return to function, but without surgery they're definitely not going to get better. So this is a decision that should be made by a boarded specialist based on a neurologic exam and potentially also CT findings and the level of pain.

Elizabeth Thompson · Answer

How do you determine if a dog needs a hemilaminectomy? Well, a dog that needs a hemilaminectomy usually has a bulging or herniated intervertebral disc although hemilaminectomies can also be performed for other reasons such as spinal canal stenosis or if there's a tumor or mass in the spinal cord or a cyst-like lesion, anything that's causing compression of the spinal cord, a hemilaminectomy might be part of a surgery to relieve that pressure. Most dogs, it's due to a herniated or bulging intervertebral disc and that leads to neurologic deficits in the legs so they may start to knuckle over, drag their legs or lose sensation in their feet. Sometimes it's very painful, other times it's progressed to the point where they actually can't feel their legs. So if you notice that your dog is walking abnormally, stepping over their feet, knuckling or dragging their paws or becoming weaker in their hind end, you really want to get them checked out by your regular family veterinarian or by an emergency veterinarian if it's coming on acutely and then additional diagnostics and imaging such as an MRI would be required before determining if next steps are needed.

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"How do you determine if a dog need a hemilaminectomy?"