Laboratory Services

Laboratory Services

Seaford Animal Hospital offers a wide variety of laboratory tests. We utilize our in hospital laboratory and a full service outside laboratory. With the in hospital laboratory, we can have results in 30 minutes or less, which means a speedier diagnosis for your pet.

Why Laboratory Testing?

Your pet can't talk and often shows no signs when something is wrong. So how do you know? Early testing and detection enable us to diagnose potential diseases before they become a serious issue. These diseases include heart worm, Lyme, thyroid, kidney, diabetes, intestinal parasites, tick borne diseases and others.
We have a new kidney test available from our referral lab that can detect kidney disease much sooner. Traditional kidney tests did not detect damage until 75% of the kidney was damaged, newer tests can detect problems with 50% damage. We can start intervention much sooner to help keep your pet happy and healthy for a longer time.

Pre Anesthetic testing allows us to detect problems that may cause complications with anesthesia and surgery. If we know of a problem before anesthesia, we can modify the anesthetic procedure or postpone the surgery.

Intestinal parasites are not usually seen in your pet's bowel movement but can cause problems with your pet and occasionally in children. Regular intestinal parasite checks (fecals) can detect these parasites and allow us to treat them before problems develop.

Many therapeutic drugs require monitoring.
Serum Drug Concentrations should be regularly tested to make sure a therapeutic level is available in the blood. (We also want to make sure the drug is not at a toxic level) These drugs include; Phenobarbital, Soloxine, and Methimazole (Tapazole).

Health Evaluation Panels monitor any effects of the medication on your pet's internal organs. Veterinary drugs are subjected to the same safety guidelines as human drugs. As with any medication, however, there can be some risks. The enhanced the health and comfort some medications provide, outweigh the risks of potential side effects. These drugs include; Enacard - (vasotec, enalapril), Phenobarbital, NSAIDS- (Deramaxx, Metacam, Rimadyl, Previcox), and Tapazole (Methimazole).