New Diagnostics to Better Serve Your Pet - IDEXX InVue

A little late to the announcement but a few weeks ago, Lifeline Veterinary Urgent Care was one of the first FIVE clinics in the state of Michigan to have the IDEXX InVue!

The InVue gives us real time blood morphology for our canine patients (feline patients, coming soon!) which can help to diagnose life threatening diseases like Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia faster!

Blood morphology is the microscopic examination of your pet’s blood cells—specifically red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), and platelets. While automated machines can count the number of these cells, they can’t always detect how the cells look. Examining the size, shape, color, and structure of blood cells can help identify a wide range of issues that may not be obvious through automated results alone. That’s where our InVue comes in. No more making slides, sending them for pathologist review and waiting days for results. Now, we get those results in less than 10 minutes!

Not only does the InVue give us an upper hand on changes in our blood morphology, it now makes ear cytologies more accurate and consistent. Just in time for allergy season!

Ear infections are among the most common reasons pet owners bring their dogs and cats to the vet. If you've ever noticed your furry friend scratching at their ears, shaking their head, or emitting an unpleasant odor from their ears, you're not alone—and these are all classic signs of an ear infection. But while the symptoms might be obvious, determining the cause of the infection isn't always so straightforward. That's where ear cytology comes in.

Traditionally, our ear cytology testing consisted of a quick, non-invasive diagnostic procedure where a sample is collected from the ear canal using a cotton swab, applied to a microscope slide, stained, and examined under a microscope. This process helps veterinarians identify what kind of organisms are present in the ear, such as:

• Bacteria (cocci or rods)

• Yeast (commonly Malassezia)

• Parasites (like ear mites)

• Inflammatory cells (indicating the severity or type of inflammation)

With this type of sampling there is an increase in user interpretation. Now, with the InVue your pets results are more consistent allowing for more accurate treatment and monitoring!

And its just the beginning, this machine is planned to do a lot more in near future!