Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Epidural anesthesia effects in dogs during hindlimb surgery
By Sarotti, Diego et al.·Published in The Journal of veterinary medical science·2022·Centro Veterinario Fossanese, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Epidural anesthesia in dogs undergoing hindlimb orthopedic surgery: effects of two injection sites.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs undergoing surgery on their back legs received epidural anesthesia either at the lower back or a bit higher up to see which worked better. The results showed that while both injection sites had similar failure rates, the dogs that received the injection at the lower back needed more pain relief during surgery. However, those dogs also took longer to regain normal movement afterward. Thankfully, there were no serious side effects like urinary issues or nerve damage. This suggests that while the lower back injection can help with pain, it may slow down recovery time.
People also search for: dog hind leg surgery recovery · epidural anesthesia for dogs · dog pain relief after surgery
Abstract
This prospective clinical trial evaluated the effects of epidural anesthesia (EA) placed at the lumbosacral compared to the L5-L6 junction in dogs undergoing hindlimb orthopedic surgery. In all, 98 dogs were randomly assigned to receive injection at either L7-S1 (LS group) or L5-L6 (LL group) at the same local anesthetic regimen (1 mg/kg bupivacaine 0.5% and 0.1 mg/kg morphine 1%). Fentanyl (1 µg/kg) was the intraoperative rescue analgesia (iRA) administered if mean arterial pressure increased by 30% above pre-stimulation value. Procedural failure, iRA, hypotension, motor block resolution, and postoperative side effects were recorded. There were 7/47 (15%) epidural procedural failures in the LS group and 8/51 (16%) (P=1.00) in the LL group; iRA was administered in 21/40 (52%) LS group dogs and in 13/43 (30%) LL group dogs, respectively (P=0.047). The incidence of hypotension was 10/40 (25%) and 16/43 (37%) in the LS group and the LL group, respectively (P=0.25). Proprioceptive residual deficit at 8 hr after EA was recorded in 3/26 (12%) in group LS dogs and in 13/26 (50%) group LL dogs, respectively (P=0.01). The proprioceptive residual deficit at 24 hr in one dog (LL group) resolved within 36 hr. No episodes of postoperative urinary retention, pruritus or neurological damage were recorded. The L5-L6 EA decreased significantly iRA but delays the proprioceptive recovery time. Further studies are needed to determine whether a lower bupivacaine dose reduces the duration of the residual block retaining the same incidence of iRA.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35067493/