Severe chronic otitis and craniomandibular osteopathy in West Highland white terriers.

Abstract

I write in relation to the recent publication by Beever et al. (2019) describing surgical management of chronic otitis associated with craniomandibular osteopathy in three West Highland white terriers. The authors state that they believe this to be the first report of craniomandibular osteopathy involving the external ear canal and associated with otitis externa and media (plus para-aural abscessation in their cases) in dogs. However, they may be interested to know that there are two previous peer-reviewed case reports on this phenomenon in West Highland white terriers, for one of which I was a co-author. Oltersdorf et al. (2013) described craniomandibular osteopathy as a complication – in the sense that it made surgery more difficult to perform – during total ear canal ablation performed for para-aural abscess in a West Highland white terrier. Calvo et al. (2014) then described repair of facial nerve neurotmesis after bilateral total canal ablation and lateral bulla osteotomy in a dog with chronic severe otitis associated with bilateral craniomandibular osteopathy. In this case, as can be seen from the CT image in the paper, the dog had craniomandibular osteopathy that caused new bone growth surrounding both ear canals as well as affecting the mandible bilaterally. The case series of three dogs reported by Beever et al. (2019), therefore adds to the information we have about the possible role of craniomandibular osteopathy in severe chronic otitis in dogs, but is not the first report of this phenomenon.