Case Study

Splenic torsion in a dog: A Forum post thread

In case you’ve never seen a splenic torsion, this is what they look like. This one was interesting in that it was a partial torsion. The head of the spleen was completely dead and avascular and the tail still had relatively normal flow and the middle had very weak flow with thrombi in the splenic veins.

DX

Splenic torsion.

Outcome

The surgeon removed the spleen and it was necrotic and creating lots of regional inflammation. Because the torsion was partial, the dog was not deathly ill but he was still a very sick dog.

Comments

Submitted by EL on Fri:
“Very cool… is that a thrombus forming in the splenic vein in video 3? Love the pericapsular ill defined fat attached to the splenic capsule at 2 O’clock position in video 1 that tells me “get me out of here!”… any + murphy sign there?”

Submitted by marty on Fri:
“You know it was really odd that this dog really didn’t have any +Murphy sign. They did give him some Ace (only, no Torb) before I got there so he was pretty mellow. On top of that he had no significant CBC changes. Owner is the owner of the vet clinic and very experienced DVM. They think he got kicked by a cow. It happened acutely, as all torsions do. Really amazing.
I have seen a number of these and the dog is usually extremely painful. This dog was just depressed. And yes, I think that’s a thrombus forming in the splenic vein in that clip (video #3.
Like you said about the fat inflammation, I told them regardless of whether this is trauma from a cow kick or a torsion, he needs that spleen out ASAP! Torsion it was (as I suspected).

**Forum post: https://sonopath.com/forum/splenic-torsion-0