Diagnostic Services - In House Laboratory

Here at Warwick Animal Hospital we perform many diagnostic tests in clinic for quick diagnoses of your pet's illnesses. Our laboratory and pharmacy area houses our CBC machines, chemistry analyzers, centrifuge, microscope, and urinalysis reader. We can have results within 10 minutes most of the time for critical cases.

Our microscope is an important tool we use daily to better diagnose and treat your pets. Dogs and cats pick up many parasites, and we use the microscope to examine samples for ear mites, skin mites (mange), and intestinal parasites (worms). We also culture samples to detect ringworm.

We perform a large amount of cytology on a regular basis for diagnosing skin infections and evaluating masses. Cytology means the examining of a small sample of cells under the microscope. Many of our allergy patients have frequent recurring skin or ear infections, and with cytology we can see if the patient needs antibiotic or antifungal treatment. If your dog or cat develops a tumor, by taking a cytology sample we can learn the seriousness of the mass and recommend surgery when needed.

These examples below are both ear cytology samples showing yeast overgrowth. Yeast organisms look like footprints or snowmen! The second example shows some bacteria as well.