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

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