Radiographic evaluation of open fontanel in puppies

Abstract

Open fontanel is the soft membranous spot located on the head of a newborn due to incomplete fusion of the cranial bones; it is at this point that all of the skull plates finally unite. It is equivalent to the soft spot at the top of a human baby's head. An understanding of a normal fontanel and its closure pattern in puppies will help in easy identification of disorders and delay in its closure time. This study was conducted to monitor the time of closure of the open fontanel in Nigerian indigenous puppies from one week to eight weeks. A total of five apparently healthy Nigerian indigenous puppies were used for this study. Radiographic exposures of the puppies were scheduled at weekly interval for 8 weeks using a setting range of 50-60 kV and 8-10 mAs and manual processing of the films was used in this study. It was observed from the results that the average length of open fontanel in the dogs were: 1.16 mm at week one, 0.92 mm at week two, 0.91 mm at week three, 0.90 mm at week four, 0.83 mm at week five, 0.71 mm at week six, at week seven, the open fontanel of one puppy fused, with an average length of 0.40 mm for the remaining puppies, at week eight, there was complete closure of the open fontanel in all the puppies. It was observed from this study that the length of open fontanel kept reducing as the animal grew older till it finally fused.