Abstract
A 3-month old female Holstein calf was presented with about a month history of intermittent dyspnea, exercise intolerance and cough despite antibiotic therapy. Auscultation revealed prominent inspiratory and exploratory crackles and wheezes over the causal cervical trachea which were heard equally over both side of the chest.4 modest amount of forced exercise caused severe respiratory distress with stertorous noise and occasional honkinglike cough. Pasteurella spp. was isolated on the nasal swabs and a hemogram showed mild leucocytosis with a mature neutrophilia and mild monocytosis. Lateral radiographs of the neck and thorax revealed a marked narrowing of the tracheal lumen extending from the level of the fifth cervical to the second thoracic vertebra, and the lung field was judged to be within normal limitsi except very mild peribronchial thickening. The hypertrophic non-union fractures of the first pair of ribs were noted with a well delineatedr redundant callus formations and also the completely healed fractures were found on the next seven pairs of ribs. A diagnosis of tracheal collapse was made, which is thought to be a traumatic origin.4 poor prognosis was given. The calf was euthanatized and necropsied. The tracheal rings from 19th to 41s1 were collapsed dorsoventrally. Histologically, there was no difference between the collapsed and normal areas of the tracheae except the folding mucosal layer in the collapsed area. This report details a case of tracheal collapse in a calli and the literature is reviewed.
