Bronchial Vegetal Foreign Bodies in the Dog —Localization in 47 Cases

Abstract

In the present work, a retrospective study on the localization of vegetal foreign bodies (VFBs) inside the tracheobronchial tree of 41 dogs is reported. In total, 47 grass awns were found, and only three dogs presented more than one foreign body. Most VFBs were found inside right bronchial ramifications (76.6%, no. 36), while 23.4% (no. 11) were found inside the ventrocaudal branch of the left cranial lobar bronchus. The impossibility of predicting the location and the concomitant presence of more than one foreign body in a single patient are conditions that impose the need for careful evaluation of the whole bronchial tree in all cases.