Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Longer anesthesia linked to worse recovery in dogs after spinal
By Fenn, Joe et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary internal medicine·2020·Department of Clinical Science and Services, United Kingdom·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Association between anesthesia duration and outcome in dogs with surgically treated acute severe spinal cord injury caused by thoracolumbar intervertebral disk herniation.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 297 dogs with severe spinal cord injuries caused by herniated disks underwent surgery, but many faced challenges in recovery. The study found that dogs who spent less time under anesthesia were more likely to regain the ability to walk within a year after surgery. Specifically, those that became ambulatory had an average anesthesia time of 4 hours, while those that did not recover were under anesthesia for about 4.5 hours. Unfortunately, some dogs did not recover and were euthanized due to worsening conditions. This suggests that shorter anesthesia times might be linked to better recovery outcomes in these cases.
People also search for: dog spinal cord injury surgery · dog unable to walk after surgery · anesthesia duration effect on dog recovery
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Retrospective research recently identified a possible relationship between duration of surgery and outcome in severely affected dogs treated surgically for acute thoracolumbar intervertebral disk herniation (TL-IVDH). HYPOTHESIS: That increased duration of surgery is associated with poorer outcome in dogs with absent pain perception treated surgically for TL-IVDH. ANIMALS: Two hundred ninety-seven paraplegic dogs with absent pain perception surgically treated for acute TL-IVDH. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study. Medical records of 5 institutions were reviewed. Inclusion criteria were paraplegia with absence of pain perception, surgical treatment of TL-IVDH, and 1-year postoperative outcome (ambulatory: yes or no). Canine data, outcome, and surgery and total anesthesia duration were retrieved. RESULTS: In this study, 183/297 (61.6%) dogs were ambulatory within 1 year, 114 (38.4%) dogs failed to recover, including 74 dogs (24.9%) euthanized because of progressive myelomalacia. Median anesthesia duration in dogs that regained ambulation within 1 year of surgery (4.0 hours, interquartile range [IQR] 3.2-5.1) was significantly shorter than those that did not (4.5 hours, IQR 3.7-5.6, P = .01). Multivariable logistic regression demonstrated a significant negative association between both duration of surgery and total anesthesia time and ambulation at 1 year when controlling for body weight and number of disk spaces operated on. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Findings support a negative association between increased duration of anesthesia and outcome in this group of dogs. However, the retrospective nature of the data does not imply a causal relationship.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32418346/