[harrymit907]

Cost to benefits probably. Vet X-rays are surprisingly expensive and then surgery had to be done anyway.

[tialaramex]

Even in human medicine some of the things on the "Do not do" guidance are diagnostic steps which are pointless because you will always do the same thing next regardless.

A bunch of them are for infant minor injury where it's like don't do an X-ray. If you can see a break on the image you'd do A, but if you can't you'd figure the break might be too small to show up and do A anyway. Kids don't need more radiation, just do A immediately without requesting an X-ray.

I have wondered if my cancer diagnosis is at the edge of this case. There's a step where they do a needle biopsy. But, as far as I can tell that biopsy always either says "Cancer" or "Don't know" and I'm not sure what else they'd do for "Not sure" beyond the next step in the cancer diagnosis...

[SoftTalker]

There's also the cases where you don't do the test because you do not want to do the next step. E.g. the test results would indicate a need for a very invasive surgery or aggressive medical treatment, but you are 80 years old and you don't want to spend your remaining time recovering from surgery or sick from side-effects.

[ninju]

Sorry to hear that...hope everything works out okay

[gcheong]

True but as the vet in the article states she couldn’t be sure that the extent of the problem was just the corn cob without an x-ray so to me it would seem more logical to take the x-ray once you’ve decided on surgery.

[krallja]

They're like $100… aren't they?

[gcheong]

Our cat had follow-up x-rays after radiation treatment for a thymoma. Cost for the 3-view X-rays was $605.00, and the consult with the radiologist was $189.00. Bay Area, but still...

[LastTrain]

Something like that, should we get out out pitchforks now?