Laboratory findings of tracheal wash and bronchoalveolar lavage in normal adult dairy cattle

Abstract

Tracheal Wash (TW) and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) are not well documented in adult cattle and published studies were undertaken on diseased animals aiming at isolating the causative agent of respiratory diseases. This study was undertaken to establish the normal cytological and microbiological findings of TW and BAL in normal adult cattle and compare between the laboratory analysis findings of both techniques. Eighteen healthy adult cattle were divided into two groups. BAL was completed the first group (n = 10) and TW was completed the second group (n = 8). Normal cytological findings of TW in healthy adult cattle were found to be primarily neutrophils (42.7 ± 35.7)% intermixed with lower numbers of columnar epithelial cells (26.2 ± 34.8)%, alveolar macrophages (14.7 ± 15.4)%, squamous epithelial cells (10 ± 28.6)%, lymphocytes (6.8 ± 16.1)% and rarely seen eosinophils (0.1 ± 0.0)% with a total cell count of 457 ± 310.1 cells/µl. Cytological findings of BAL were found to be mainly alveolar macrophages (94.3 ± 3.9)%, intermixed with lower number of neutrophils (4.3 ± 3.9)% and lymphocytes (1.3 ± 1.2)% and rarely seen eosinophils (0 ± 0.1)% with a total cell count of 238 ± 169 cells/µl. There are remarkable differences in TW and BAL cytological findings and the degree of contamination was higher in TW samples than that seen in BAL lavage.

Cytological analysis of tracheal wash and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in health and respiratory disease in dromedary camels

“…The low frequency of eosinophils (Abutarbush et al, 2019;Hughes et al, 2003) and mast cells (Hughes et al, 2003;Leclere et al, 2006;Malikides et al, 2003) in BAL and TW from healthy camels of the present study is in agreement with results from other species. Although the diagnostic value of mast cells in BAL and TW are not fully studied (Rossi et al, 2018), we found significantly more mast cells in the BAL from diseased camel, which is similar to results reported for diseased horses (Leclere et al, 2006).…”

“…Due to limited information about cytological values in camels, the results from the current work were compared with data reported for other species. In our study, the total cell count of BAL in healthy camels was similar to results reported for the bovine BAL cytology (Abutarbush et al, 2019). Similar to other species, including cattle, horses, and donkeys (Abutarbush et al, 2019;Hoffman, 2008;Rossi et al, 2018;Shawaf, 2019), respiratory diseases in camels were associated with increased total cell count in the BAL fluid.…”

“…In our study, the total cell count of BAL in healthy camels was similar to results reported for the bovine BAL cytology (Abutarbush et al, 2019). Similar to other species, including cattle, horses, and donkeys (Abutarbush et al, 2019;Hoffman, 2008;Rossi et al, 2018;Shawaf, 2019), respiratory diseases in camels were associated with increased total cell count in the BAL fluid. For cattle with respiratory diseases, however, greater increase in the total BAL cell count was reported (Thirunavukkarasu et al, 2005).…”

“…The early diagnosis of respiratory disorders is a key factor for choosing specific treatment to prevent disease progression and chronic lung disease (Intisar et al, 2009;Intisar et al, 2010a;Intisar et al, 2010b;Kebedi, 2010). Tracheal wash (TW) and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) are valuable tools widely used for the investigation of the respiratory tract in human (Rose & Knox, 2007), horses (Orard et al, 2016), cattle (Pringle et al, 1988;Abutarbush et al, 2019;Kokotovic, Friis & Ahrens, 2007), sheep (Katsoulos et al, 2009), pigs (Weissenbacher-Lang et al, 2016), alpaca (Pacheco, Mazan & Hoffman, 2012), dogs (Creevy, 2009;Zhu, Johnson & Vernau, 2015), and cats (Lin et al, 2015). TW and BAL samples are valuable mirrors of different areas of the airways and can be used in combination with other methods for the diagnosis of lower respiratory tract inflammation (Malikides et al, 2003).…”

Evaluation of the Respiratory Microbiome and the Use of Tracheal Lavage as a Diagnostic Tool in Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys kempii)

“…Different diagnostic tools will provide different results for both culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. In cattle, tracheal lavage samples had drastic differences in cytological findings compared to bronchoalveolar lavage due to the location of the respiratory tract sampled (trachea vs. bronchioles), and tracheal lavages had higher na-sopharyngeal contamination [15]. Further, cultures of deep oral swabs are not appropriate surrogates to tracheal lavage samples in dogs, as each resulted in different isolates [16].…”