Abstract
Bone marrow as a soft material found in the central core of bones is vitally important for the production of blood cells and platelets. Bone marrow is commonly collected and examined when abnormalities are found in the circulating blood. The presented investigation aimed to describe the best anatomical sites for aspiration of the bone marrow in dogs and to record the computed tomographic anatomy and detection the site of needle aspiration. The present study was carried out on 7 apparently clinically healthy mongrel dogs (3 male and 4 female). The dog's weights were 15 - 50 kg bwt and their ages were 8 - 24 months. Three dogs (one male and two females) were euthanized to perform a cadaveric study to approach humerus, sternum, iliac crest and femur to detect the best site to introduce different sizes of aspiration needles to aspirate bone marrow samples. The other four dogs were undergone three dimensions (3D) computed tomography (CT) to detect the length of the needle inside the bone to aspirate bone marrow samples. In conclusion, the anatomical details of long bones (humerus and femur) and flat bones (sternum and ilium) were well showed by bone window of anatomical computed tomography. The Transverse plane showed that, humerus, femur and ilium are viewed in this plane with clear defined intra medullary cavity and the aspiration needle was obvious through head of humerus; Meanwhile, this plane was not valuable to detect medullary cavity of the sternum. The three dimensional view cleared that, the humerus, femur, ilium and sternum were viewed from all directions to detect anatomical sites for needle introduction. The sternum is anatomically detailed as a different lengths of sternebrae and needle insertion is safe in the longest sternebra (2nd one).

Key words: Bone marrow, sternum, femur, iliac crest, Dogs.