Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Pain relief options after spay surgery in cats compared
By Fudge, James Mack et al.·Published in Topics in companion animal medicine·2021·Hill Country Animal League, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Evaluation of Targeted Bupivacaine, Bupivacaine-lidocaine-epinephrine, Dexamethasone, and Meloxicam for Reducing Acute Postoperative Pain in Cats Undergoing Routine Ovariohysterectomy.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
A group of 151 cats undergoing routine spay surgery (ovariohysterectomy) were given different pain relief treatments to see which worked best after the procedure. The treatments included bupivacaine, a combination of bupivacaine-lidocaine-epinephrine, dexamethasone, and meloxicam. While all cats had similar pain levels one hour after waking up from anesthesia, those given meloxicam reported significantly less pain three hours later compared to those who received the bupivacaine-lidocaine-epinephrine combination. This suggests that meloxicam may be a better option for managing pain in cats after spay surgery.
People also search for: cat spay surgery pain relief · meloxicam for cats after surgery · cat pain management options
Abstract
This study compared bupivacaine (BUP), bupivacaine-lidocaine-epinephrine (BLE), dexamethasone (DEX), and meloxicam (MEL) targeted at specific, potentially painful sites for reducing acute postoperative pain in cats undergoing elective ovariohysterectomy. One hundred fifty-one cats were included in a prospective, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial. Anesthesia consisted of a standardized protocol including buprenorphine, ketamine, dexmedetomidine, and isoflurane. A ventral midline ovariohysterectomy was performed, and cats were administered targeted injections of 0.5% bupivacaine (2 mg/kg); a combined 0.25% bupivacaine (1 mg/kg), 1% lidocaine (2 mg/kg), and 1:100,000 epinephrine (0.005 mg/kg); dexamethasone (0.125 mg/kg); or meloxicam (0.2 mg/kg) intraoperatively at the ovarian suspensory ligaments, uterine body, and incisional subcutaneous tissues. A 0-10 Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NRS) was used to assess cats postoperatively, 1 hour and 3 hours after anesthesia recovery prior to a same day discharge. Pain scores among evaluators were in good agreement with an overall Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) of 0.7897 (95% Confidence Interval 0.795-0.8313).  In all groups, overall pain scores 1-hour post anesthesia recovery were significantly higher than scores 3 hours post anesthesia recovery (P < .0001). Averaged pain scores compared among treatment groups did not differ at 1 hour post recovery. At 3-hours post anesthesia recovery, MEL group cats had significantly lower pain scores than the BLE group (P = .018). Study results indicate that early postoperative pain scores were similar for cats receiving local infiltrations of BUP, BLE, DEX, and MEL as part of a multimodal pain therapy for routine ovariohysterectomies. MEL showed somewhat better results 3 hours post anesthesia recovery, gaining significance over the BLE group.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34314884/