COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHIC APPEARANCE OF A NORMAL VARIANT OF THE CANINE TENTORIUM CEREBELLI OSSEUM

A nine-year-old German Shepherd dog presented to the Veterinary Teachi ng Hospital at North Carolina State University with an eleven-day hist ory of progressive depression, lethargy, inability to walk, blindness and intermittent vomiting, Computed tomography (CT) of the brain was u nremarkable; however, bilateral regions of low photon absorption were noted within the tentorium cerebelli osseum, Mean CT numbers of -47.9 Hounsfield units (HU) and -26.4 HU were recorded within the left and r ight areas, respectively, These areas most likely represent diploe and are presumably a normal variant of the canine skull, A possible expla nation for this finding includes a developmental variant where the med ial and lateral plates of the tentorium cerebelli osseum fail to fuse, thus leaving a space for diploe accumulation, Use of various combinat ions of CT windows and numbers can be valuable for characterizing such variants.