Surgical Anesthesia & Analgesia

Anesthesia

Most rodent surgery will be conducted under general anesthesia, a condition in which the animal is unconscious and completely insensible to pain. There are two types of general anesthetic agents.

Injectable anesthetics are administered via needle and syringe. The duration of injectable anesthesia is usually prolonged, at least 20 minutes to more than an hour depending on the choice of anesthetic.

• These anesthetics are administered to rodents via intraperitoneal injection with a sterile needle and syringe.
• The amount delivered must be calculated based on the animal's body weight.
• The duration of anesthesia depends on the drug selected. Recovery (time required to wake up from the anesthetic) is usually long.

Inhalant anesthetics require special equipment to deliver a controlled dose with the animal remaining anesthetized only as long as it is breathing the anesthetic gas. Animals tend to recover very rapidly from the inhalant anesthetic (isoflurane) that is used most commonly at Penn State. A veterinarian should be consulted regarding the choice of anesthetic.

• The delivery of inhalant anesthetics, such as isoflurane, requires the use of an anesthetic vaporizer.
• The duration and depth of anesthesia is easily controlled and recovery is rapid.
• Chronic exposure to inhalant anesthetics such as isoflurane represents a potential human health hazard and should be avoided.
• Isoflurane may only be used in locations where equipment is available to direct anesthetic fumes away from the user.
• You must be trained to use this equipment.

Specific information on injectable and inhalant anesthetics available for various species may be found on the ARP website.

Monitoring the Depth of Anesthesia

The ideal dose of general anesthesia acts on the central nervous system to eliminate the sensation of pain as well as consciousness. However, anesthetics may also affect breathing and heart function such that high doses can put the animal's life in jeopardy. The goals of monitoring are to:

• Verify that the animal is not able to feel pain. Firmly pinch the paw or tail. If the animal moves it is too lightly anesthetized.
• Make sure that the animal is not too deeply anesthetized. As the animal becomes more deeply anesthetized the breathing rate will slow and breathing will become shallow (useful for mice and other rodents).
• Instruments such as a pulse oximeter may be used to monitor the heart rate and blood oxygen levels.

Anesthetic depth should be monitored by performing a toe or tail pinch about every 5 minutes Although it is ideal to continuously monitor the character of respiration, it is easy to concentrate so deeply on the surgical procedure that you are not paying attention to breathing. Therefore, you should make a point of checking respirations about every 5 minutes when you check toe/tail pinch.

Important: It is easy to forget about monitoring the animal when you are concentrating on the surgical procedure. Consider using an alarm set to beep at 5 minute intervals to remind you to check.

Analgesia

Post-operative analgesic medication must be provided for research animals subjected to procedures which may be expected to induce more than momentary or slight discomfort. Pain adversely impacts the welfare of animals and if not controlled, is a variable that can confound the interpretation of experimental results. Investigators are responsible for the assessment and management of pain in their research animals and must include a detailed pain management plan in their IACUC protocol.

It is often advisable to administer analgesic medication immediately before, or in some cases, just after the surgical procedure. The intention is to establish effective analgesia before the animal recovers from anesthesia. This is termed preemptive analgesia. The administration of analgesia before surgery and recovery from anesthesia may reduce the severity and duration of post-operative pain and decrease the amount of analgesic medication needed to provide effective pain relief.

Specific information on analgesics available for various species may be found on the ARP website.

Preemptive analgesia insures that all animals receive analgesic medication prior to the onset of post-operative pain. However, this requires the investigator to make an accurate prediction of how much post-operative pain the surgical procedure will cause the animal. The investigator must also continue to observe and evaluate each animal post-operatively for pain and discomfort and treat accordingly.

In most cases analgesics should be administered by injection. Analgesic drugs may be placed in drinking water or food for oral delivery, but these methods run the risk of inaccurate dosing, lack of consumption due to palatability and degradation of the drug over time as it sits in the water bottle or food product.

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