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  • What's Your Diagnosis
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What's your diagnosis?: Spontaneous Concretions in the Urinary Tract of Rats

Lab Animal volume 32, pages 22–23 (2003)Cite this article

The Medical University of South Carolina has maintained a rodent sentinel-monitoring program for the past 18 years. We use the sentinel animals to monitor the health status of immunocompetent rodents on a semiannual basis, and monitor immunocompromised rodents and those in the transgenic core facility quarterly. We house sentinel rodents in open top (no filter) polycarbonate cages. Each time we change cages in an animal room, which is usually twice weekly, we place dirty bedding in the sentinels' cages. We place six new sentinel rats in each rat room once a year. After six months, we remove two rats for monitoring and then remove the remaining four animals six months later. We purchase all sentinel rodents from Charles River Laboratories at 28 days of age. The sentinel rats are seronegative for rodent pathogens as determined by an “Assessment Plus” profile done at Charles River Laboratories (Wilmington, MA), and Helicobacter-negative based on PCR of fecal pellets.

What's your diagnosis?

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Figure 1: Exposed abdominal cavity of a 12-month-old male CD (SD) IGS BR rat (Rat A).
Figure 2: Opened urinary bladder from the rat in Fig. 1 (Rat A).
Figure 3: Dissected urinary bladder of a 9-month-old female CD (SD) IGS BR rat (Rat B).
Figure 4: Opened urinary bladder from the rat in Fig. 3 (Rat B).
Figure 5: Dissected kidneys from the rat in Fig. 3 (Rat B).

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  1. Bingel is in the Department of Comparative Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, 114 Doughty St., Charleston, SC 29425.,

    Sarah A. Bingel VMD, PhD

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  1. Sarah A. Bingel VMD, PhD
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Correspondence to Sarah A. Bingel VMD, PhD.

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Bingel, S. What's your diagnosis?: Spontaneous Concretions in the Urinary Tract of Rats. Lab Anim 32, 22–23 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/labab0903-22

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