Cytology of the lower respiratory tract in horses: An updated review

Abstract

Summary The diagnosis of respiratory diseases in horses can be difficult due to the nonspecific nature of the clinical signs, which overlap between the different diseases. Cytological examination of the respiratory secretions is a helpful diagnostic tool that, when combined with clinical features and other diagnostic techniques, has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy significantly. This review article should help readers to become familiar with the cytology of the normal respiratory tract and with the cytopathological abnormalities associated with common respiratory disorders in horses.

Age‐related variation in the cellular composition of equine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid

“…It may be worthwhile to consider the potential for age‐related changes when interpreting BALF cytology, as most inflammatory conditions of young adult and aged horses are characterized, at least in part, by an increase in neutrophils, mast cells, and/or eosinophils. For example, an increase in the percentage of one or more of these cell types is used to help define horses suffering from IAD (> 10% neutrophils, > 5% mast cells, > 5% eosinophils—or any combination) . The youngest age group of foals sampled in this study (one week of age) had, on average, a higher proportion of neutrophils than the other age groups; however, this finding was not statistically significant.…”

Safkan İngiliz ve Arap Yarış Atlarında Görülen Beta Hemolitik Streptococcus Türlerinin Sitolojik Bulgular Eşliğinde Çeşitli Vücut Bölgelerinden İzolasyonu ve Antibiyotik Duyarlılıkları

“…for 5 min. The slides were prepared from the sediment of the centrifuged samples as described before [17] . The air dried slides were stained with May Grunwald Quick stain (Bio Optica 20134 Milano Italy) that was used according to the manufacturer's instructions.…”

“…Inflammation of the lower airways was considered positive when neutrophils made up ≥30% of all cells and the presence of degeneration in neutrophils and likely to have intracellular bacteria (Fig. 1) [17] . Cytological examination of the intrauterine swabs were performed according to the previous study [22] .…”

“…Besides the isolation of a microorganism from clinical samples, determining the inflammation by cytological examination in concordance with bacterial isolation is also detrimental in order to separate contamination from real infection in the diagnosis of bacterial infections [17,18] .…”

Evaluation of serum cytokine levels in recurrent airway obstruction

“…Venous blood was obtained to rule out evidence of pulmonary infection, based on a blood count and acute phase protein concentration. A score of less than 10% of neutrophils in BALF was required for healthy horses, while > 50% neutrophils in a differential cell count following the environmental exposure was required to define RAO-affected horses as being in crisis (Cian et al 2015).…”