THE TREATMENT OF THE FOREARM FRACTURES IN DOGS

The practical implementation of this study was enabled by taking into consideration all the traumatized cases accompanied by fractures, presented at the Clinic of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine during the period of March 2006 - March 2010. Special help for the implementation of this study was even offered by some private clinics in Tirana, from which we took a considerable number of valuable data. The cases of traumatized dogs were numerous and in different situations. Thus from this high number of the traumatizations accompanied by different fractures (altogether 115 dogs), 34 of them had fractures in the forearms bones. All these cases underwent surgical treatment through osteosynthesis with blood and external immobilization. We also treated cases of complications in healing these fractures after surgical treatment. The complications in the recovery of the fractures of the long bones in dogs are frequent. Above all they are first noticed in the bones of the forearm. Different problems might be identified such as’ mal joints, lack of joints, retarded joints and osteomyelitis. These because of the limited covering of the focus of the fracture by the soft tissues, lack of blood supply of the region as well as of the characteristic anatomo-topographic structure that this region has. Specifically the data that were taken into consideration included the period of recovery, the characteristics of the fracture, the type of surgical treatment and the final result. The fractures are often presented as closed fractures and less as transverse and oblique fractures. The most frequent treatment is the conservative one through external immobilization and in some cases of fractures of the radius the treatment was performed with endomedullar rods.