Clinical and cytologic evaluation of respiratory tract from quarter horses following exercise

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the
bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cytology following exercise
from twelve Quarter Horse breed animals from Curitiba
City and surroundings. After infusion of 100 ml of
physiologic solution with endoscopy and silicon catheter,
an average of 30 mL of BAL was recovery per horse,
analized and submited to cytocentrifugation. Cytocentrifuge slides were obtained and stained by
Giemsa, Papanicolaou and Perls Prussian Blue. None
of the horses presented epistaxis or any other
abnormality on the clinical examination, nor pulmonary
bleeding by endoscopy. The erythrocyte and leukocyte
in BAL counts were with in the normal range of literature,
as well as the leukocyte differential, with a mean
proportion of 62.3±13.7% and 34.1±14.8% for
macrophages and lymphocytes, respectivelly. However,
the presence of hemosiderophages in different
percentages, suggested that part of the animals were
under subclinical pulmonary hemorrhage, not clinically
detected. Based on the present study, we concluded
that the evaluation of cellular populations with the use of
cytocentrifuge and special stains can provide to the
clinician important additional information on functional
status of respiratory tract, particularly hemorrhage.