Maggie was presented to surgeon Dr Maria Bovis for Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome (BOAS) surgery.

This condition refers to the range of breathing problems brachycephalic breeds suffer with, mainly referring to comprised air movement through the upper airways.

BOAS is the result of multiple factors affecting the dogs airflow in to the lungs. These problems can be caused by the following factors:

– Stenotic nares can dramatically increase the resistance to air flow into the nose. This, combined with the tendency for the cartilage supports of the nares to collapse during inspiration, requires an increased effort than normal in order to breathe.

– An overlong soft palate can partially obstruct air flow into the trachea and also cause turbulent airflow in the area of the larynx. Again, both requires an increased breathing effort, causing significant inflammation of the upper airway.

As most of the problems included in BOAS result from upper airway obstruction, the main initial focus is unblocking the airways. This is most commonly achieved by surgically widening the nares and shortening the soft palate. In most instances, dogs having undergone surgery do not require any additional surgical treatments for their airways. However, a small subset of dogs will deteriorate further with time and require more treatments, especially of their larynx.

Maggie had her stenotic nares widened. You can see her preoperative, operative and postoperative photos showing the surgical changes – you can see the difference!