Correct positioning of hip x-rays

Lots of people still don’t know what to look for when their dog’s hips are x-rayed. The first thing you must always do, before looking at the actual hips, is to make sure the positioning is correct! Many kennelclubs and OFA just rate x-rays that are really not correct positioned. The positioning is important for the score. Without good positioning, the score means nothing…….

On the xray there are numbers which indicate special places to look for when examing an xray.
1 2 3 & 4 are used to evaluate if the positioning is ok, to see wether the vet obtained a good level off symmetry between left and right.

1. is the ilium wing,
2. is the ilium,
3. is the foramen obturatoria: these should be for the left and right side, more or less equal in size and shape.
4. is the overlap off the ischium by the femur, the triangel should be of the same size left and right. The patellas are not marked by a number, but they should be in the middle, under no circumstances can they thouch the borders of the femur, in order for, the scrutineer to know wether the femurs where turned enough.
   The red lines are used to get a general overvieuw of the symmetry. The lines have to be parallel to each other, within a 5 degree marge.
5. indicates the cranial acetabular border, this line should be parallel to the ball of the femoral head, it indicates wether the hip is thight or not
6. is the dorsal acetabular border, this line should cover the femoral head for more than 2/3 in order to have thight hips!

Source, Tom de Leu www.aandeheikant.be