Revolutionary robotic CT scanner looks inside waking, moving horses - CNET

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It's called Equimagine, and it could hugely increase what we know about how horses work. Rather than requiring an animal to be sedated and immobilised, this new CT scanner developed by the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and imaging technology company 4DDI can image horses standing and in motion.

Using two robotic arms, the imager can collect two-dimensional CT images, as well as fluoroscopic (moving) images, three-dimensional images via tomosynthesis, and high-speed radiographs up to 16,000 frames per second. This should help figure out the stresses horse legs are subject to as they walk and run, making fractures easier to diagnose and treat.

"The reason this is so revolutionary is that the robots can easily move around the horse in any orientation," Barbara Dallap Schaer, medical director at Penn Vets New Bolton Center, in a statement. "We can do the imaging in a patient that is standing and awake. From a clinical standpoint, we will see elements of the horse's anatomy that we've never seen before."