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How Can Artificial Intelligence be Used in the Veterinary Field?

Introduction

As we advance into the 2020’s, artificial intelligence is everywhere we look. Many fields such as

software engineering, health care, data analytics, cybersecurity and customer service are moving towards

the use of artificial intelligence. One of the biggest examples of artificial intelligence being used today is

in the automobile industry, and it’s expected that by 2030 around 80% of vehicles will be (somewhat)

autonomous (FutureBridge). While the world seems to be moving towards the use of artificial

intelligence, I have noticed one field that seems to be behind the curve: the veterinary field. As an

aspiring veterinarian who will be entering the field in the next 8 years, it feels important to acknowledge

the possibility of artificial intelligence being a tool that I may work with regularly one day. These factors

have led me to my personal research question: How can artificial intelligence be used in the veterinary

field? Through my research I have found that artificial intelligence could be an incredible tool in

pathology, radiology, and diagnosis.

Radiology

Radiology could be one of the greatest uses for AI in healthcare. Radiology diagnosis is all based

on irregularities that are found due to the comparison of how a healthy animal would look on a

radiograph. For example, a common issue in bunnies is GI stasis due to a lack of a healthy diet, teeth

trimming, or dehydration. A huge concern in bunnies and in general for exotic veterinarians is the nature

of working on prey animals. Since bunnies are a hunted animal in the wild, they typically don’t show

sickness until it’s almost too late, and this leads exotic veterinarians to always work with a sense of

urgency as usually owners don’t notice issues in their pets until it’s almost too late. Having a resource that

could effectively and quickly offer suggestions for diagnosis could be vital in emergency situations. This

idea is not just an abstract idea, as there are promising studies showing that artificial intelligence models

can successfully identify problems in animal radiographs. An example of this was done in “Using
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Machine Learning to Classify Image Features from Canine Pelvic Radiographs” by Fintan J Mcevoy.

This study was conducted in 2012 and sought out to see if a partial least square discriminant analysis

model (PLS-DA) and an artificial neural network model (ANN) were capable of areas of interest on the

canine pelvic joint. The study found that the PLS-DA model was able to diagnose with a 0.067

classification error, and the ANN model had a classification error of 0.089. The models also managed to

find results in an average of 2.19 minutes per radiograph, and these models have the potential to give

great suggestions and help reduce human error. The untapped potential of artificial intelligence in

radiology is huge, and there’s a possibility of these models being even more accurate than the human eye,

as in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning in Pathology, Nobel peace prize winning scholar Stanley

Cohen writes, “The analysis of an image can be more robust and provide more information than that

which can be obtained by unaided morphological interpretation by the human eye.” While this is just an

observatory claim and has no backing, it still shows the potential of how eventually with enough research

these neural networks and ML models can vastly benefit the way that veterinarians work now.

Pathology

Pathology is another field that could greatly benefit with the use of artificial intelligence. When

analyzing slides, pathologists spend hours looking through microscopes at slides. Fatigue and eye strain

can cause errors, and this leads to regulations that limit the overall efficiency of slide analysis. The New

York State Department of Health released a list of regulations for pathological screeners, and in these

regulations they limit screeners to not examine more than 80 slides in the span of 24 hours, at a minimum

of an 8 hour shift. These limitations are needed to reduce human error, but overall can be extremely

inefficient. ML-models, however, can help lower these limitations. An example of this was proven in an

experiment geared to see if neural networks were able to identify plasmodium gallinaceum (avian

malaria) in chicken feces. Overall, these neural networks were able to successfully identify this parasite

97% of the time, and the Darknet algorithm in specific was able to identify the parasite at a success rate of

99.2%. An experiment was conducted to see how AI was able to determine the spermatogenic stages of
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rats, by analyzing slides from different ages of the testes. The algorithm managed to score an accuracy of

0.984, which is extremely comparable to the success rates of humans. A great experiment on artificial

intelligence in pathology was done by Christof A Bertram, where they sought out to see how a deep

learning model could help pathologists identify mitotic count in canine cutaneous mass cell tumors. What

makes this experiment so unique is the difficulty of identifying mitotic cells in tumors. False negatives are

very common, and the data found that a deep learning model can greatly increase pathologist’s ability to

identify these mitotic cells. Instead of utilizing the deep learning model to try and identify the mitotic

count alone as the prior 2 experiments have, this model was made to only identify cells that had the

potential of being mitotic and highlight them for the pathologist to make the decision whether they were

mitotic or not. The experiment used 23 total pathologists to acquire the most accurate data, and the

interobserver correlation coefficient went from 0.70 without the aid of artificial intelligence to 0.92. False

negatives also went down 38% with the model identifying potential mitotic cells, and this data shows

huge potential for how artificial intelligence can help pathologists in the future.

Diagnosis

The last field that I plan to show the potential benefits of artificial intelligence in is diagnosis.

While I have shown how artificial intelligence can greatly improve in pathology and radiology fields,

diagnosis is by far a much more abstract concept. Diagnosis is very complicated in the veterinary field,

and it can get even more confusing when talking about exotic veterinarians. The main difference between

dog and cat veterinarians and exotic veterinarians is that there’s much more of an established standard

with dog and cat veterinarians as they only work on two species. The one benefit of the exotic veterinary

field is that there’s an extreme amount of writing and academic journal on cases, as we are responsible for

taking care of any pet that’s not a dog or cat. The issue with this is as an emergency veterinary technician,

I have found myself in emergency situations where time is of the essence and I have had to frantically

search through veterinary journals such a VIN or paperback books to try and find the best treatment for a

case, or in worse scenarios try to even understand the issue. I’m currently in the process of being
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published for a rare case of a blue and gold macaw eating desert rose, a toxic houseplant. As far as I could

find this has never happened before, but we were lucky enough that the owners knew that the pet had

eaten this plant and we were also fortunate enough to reflect on a case of a dog eating the same toxic

plant. This is why I believe that a large neural network for exotic veterinarians could raise red flags and

show potential diagnoses based on symptoms. Neural networks are based on pattern recognition, and

Sawon Bhattacharya defines this as “a process of finding regularities and similarities in data using

machine learning data. Now, these similarities can be found based on statistical analysis, historical data,

or the already gained knowledge by the machine itself.” This process would be extremely tedious, but as

many veterinarians already rely on other’s information setting up a large neural network that would

require the species and symptoms to show potential diagnoses could help veterinarians get the second that

they desperately need in many cases. While I don’t believe that a neural network could solely diagnose

alone, I believe that showing a list of potential diagnoses could efficiently help veterinarians in the

tedious diagnosis process, and in turn help clients pay less as expensive testing such as gram stains,

biopsies, and blood panels could be used less. Another great way that machine learning could help in the

veterinary field is giving a survivability likelihood for surgeries. A large issue for pet owners and

veterinarians alike is the morale dilemma for invasive surgeries. Surgeries are expensive for owners and

can bring up questions such as if it’s necessary or if it will improve your pet’s quality of life, meaning an

algorithm that could give percentages on success rates could help make these decisions a little easier . An

example of this was done to predict the survivability likelihood on horses with colic, a very common

ailment in horses. The algorithm was given classification features to give it a better gauge on the

situation, and these factors were age, sex, duration, history, heart rate, rectal exam, and abdominocentesis.

The algorithm would then give percentages on if they would need surgery, and the survivability

likelihood of said surgery.

Discussion
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Overall, this evidence proves a huge potential in artificial intelligence in the veterinary field for

the future. Two large constraints that the veterinary community faces currently in the implementation of

these models are the financial burden and investment of time that is required to make this possible. While

there is research being done currently, it’s not hugely widespread and many of these ideas are simply

abstract concepts with no real backing from major corporations in the veterinary business. One factor that

leads to optimism for the implementation of AI in these fields is the human healthcare system . As the

human healthcare system is much larger and receives more funding, it seems that similar models will

soon be put into place in these fields. This could cause a trickle-down effect, and veterinary pathologists

and radiologists especially will most likely follow the systems that were created initially for humans.

These fields are very similar, and the models would work in the same fashion but with different data

meaning the jump wouldn’t be incredibly difficult. Another factor that could potentially make this process

happen sooner is how the veterinary world is getting increasingly more corporate. Corporations such as

Mars, Banfield, and VCA are buying out many smaller privately owned clinics, and this could lead to a

corporate level of communication which could result in more money being invested into research on

artificial intelligence as many clinics would be able to benefit from this investment. The future of

artificial intelligence in the veterinary world is very strong, and this technology can ease the lives of

veterinarians and ensure that our pets will always have the best resources available to be healthy.
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Works Cited

“Artificial Intelligence Reshaping the Automotive Industry.” FutureBridge, 22 Sept. 2022,

https://www.futurebridge.com/industry/perspectives-mobility/artificial-intelligence-

reshaping-the-automotive-industry/.

Bertram, Christof A., et al. “Computer-Assisted Mitotic Count Using a Deep Learning–Based

Algorithm Improves Interobserver Reproducibility and Accuracy.” Veterinary Pathology,

vol. 59, no. 2, 2021, pp. 211–226., https://doi.org/10.1177/03009858211067478.

Bhattacharya, Sawon. “An Overview of Neural Approach on Pattern Recognition.” Analytics

Vidhya, 18 Dec. 2020, https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2020/12/an-overview-of-

neural-approach-on-pattern-recognition/.

Cohen, Stanley. Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning in Pathology, Elsevier, Amsterdam,

2021.

Fraiwan, Mohammad A., and Sameeh M. Abutarbush. “Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict

Survivability Likelihood and Need for Surgery in Horses Presented with Acute Abdomen

(Colic).” Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, vol. 90, 19 Mar. 2020, p. 102973.,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jevs.2020.102973.
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Kittichai, Veerayuth, et al. “Classification for Avian Malaria Parasite Plasmodium Gallinaceum

Blood Stages by Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks.” Scientific Reports, vol. 11,

no. 1, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96475-5.

“Laboratory Reporting and Specimen Submission Requirements for Cytopathology.”

Wadsworth, 2020, https://www.wadsworth.org/sites/default/files/WebDoc/CDRG

%20NYState%202020_101920%202.pdf.

McEvoy, Fintan J., and José M. Amigo. “Using Machine Learning to Classify Image Features

from Canine Pelvic Radiographs: Evaluation of Partial Least Squares Discriminant

Analysis and Artificial Neural Network Models.” Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound, vol.

54, no. 2, 2012, pp. 122–126., https://doi.org/10.1111/vru.12003.