State of the art analgesia—Recent developments pharmacological approaches to acute pain management in dogs and cats: Part 2

Abstract

There has been considerable interest in the area of acute pain management over recent years, focusing on pain assessment, pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. The evidence base for our clinical decision making and treatment of patients is ever increasing and becoming more robust. There is still a tendency to base some aspects of pain management on poor quality evidence and this requires further input in years to come. With new literature come new ideas and this review will detail the current knowledge base behind pharmacological management of acute pain in dogs and cats. The known mechanisms of action of each analgesic and its evidence will be considered. The second part of this review will consider the non-traditional analgesics, describing their component drugs individually, thereby focusing on their mechanisms of action and the current evidence for their use in acute pain management.

Methods of local blockade with lidocaine in cats submitted to laparoscopic ovariectomy

“…The animals were pre-medicated with dexmedetomidine (SLINGSBY et al, 2010, p. 166;MCSWEENEY et al, 2012, p. 411) based on its ability to reverse of its analgesic and sedative effects, with the use of atipamezole; while fentanyl was chosen, as the opioid for trans-surgical analgesic rescue, due to its short half-life and minimal analgesic residue, thus avoiding interference in postoperative pain evaluation (BRADBROOK;CLARK, 2018, p. 63).…”

“…Pain was analyzed subjectively and objectively by three experienced evaluators and unaware of the anesthetic treatments used. The Visual Analog Scale (VAS), UNESPS (BRONDANI et al, 2011) and CMPS-F (REID et al, 2018) were used at the moments: T0 (prior to surgery), one, two, three and six hours after extubation (T1, T2, T3 and T6, respectively).…”

Anaesthesia of brachycephalic dogs

“…There are numerous analgesic options available for management of acute surgical pain in dogs, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids, paracetamol, ketamine and local anaesthetic drugs. While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss this topic exhaustively, it has recently been thoroughly reviewed by Bradbrook & Clark (2018). However, it is interesting to note that the incorporation of locoregional anaesthetic techniques and a multimodal approach to analgesia is recommended in people with OSA undergoing surgery (Corso et al 2018); it reduces opioid use peri-and postoperatively, reducing associated respiratory depression and postoperative nausea and vomiting (Corso et al 2018).…”

Chronic Pain in Dogs and Cats: Is There Place for Dietary Intervention with Micro-Palmitoylethanolamide?

“…From a veterinary perspective, this represents a definitive recognition of animal pain and poses veterinary practitioners in an “algological position”, i.e., to play a proactive role in recognizing, assessing and managing animal pain. Indeed, many efforts have been made in this direction during the last decades and several European and US groups are moving toward the development of better protocols to detect [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], measure [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ] and treat [ 7 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] animal pain accordingly. The ever-increasing availability of well-designed pain scales for acute and chronic pain in dogs and cats [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ] and the Pain Management Guidelines [ 27 , 28 ] are good examples.…”