Tracheobronchic washing in dogs by means of rigid endoscopy or endotracheal tube

The present study aimed to evaluate the results of rigid endoscopy and endotracheal tube techniques for collecting tracheobronchic fluid from dogs. Twenty eight erratic or housed dogs, were allocated into to two groups. In group 1, tracheobronchic washing was applied to seven healthy dogs and seven dogs with clinical signs of respiratory disease. In group 2, seven healthy and seven dogs with respiratory disease were submitted to endo-bronchial washing by rigid endoscopy. Using rigid endoscopy, a lower volume was introduced but a higher percentage of washing fluid was recovered. There was no difference regarding the time necessary to perform both techniques. Bacterial counts were higher in samples collected by rigid endoscopy, but there was no difference in total nucleated cell counts from these samples. Thus, the use of rigid endoscopy to collect tracheobronchic fluid was found to be advantageous when compared to the conventional technique using endotracheal tube.