Clinical Evaluation of General Anaesthesia using Ketamine Hydrochloride with and without Diazepam in Sheep

Abstract

The study has been carried out to evaluate the clinical efficacy of ketamine with or without diazepam in sheep. Six healthy sheep were used in this study and randomly divided into two groups; Group A (atropine-diazepam-ketamine) and Group B (atropine-ketamine). Anaesthesia was induced with administration of diazepam (0.4 mg/kg b.wt) and ketamine (15 mg/kg b.wt) intramuscularly (IM) after five minutes of IM administration of atropine sulphate (0.05 mg/kg b.wt) in group A and ketamine (22 mg/kg b.wt) IM after five minutes of IM injection of atropine sulphate (0.05 mg/kg b.wt) in group B. Clinical parameters were recorded before and after (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 mins, 1h and 24h post- recovery) administration of peripheral blood was collected at the same interval for haemato-biochemical observations. The clinical, hematological and serum biochemical profile differed from the values obtained at pre-experimental control level in both groups A and B. However, in group A, the changes were smooth and steady whereas these were irregular, fluctuated and inconsistent in certain clinical and biochemical parameters in sheep of group B. The present study indicates that the use of atropine-diazepam-ketamine anaesthesia is safe and useful in sheep than atropine-ketamine anaesthesia for major invasive procedures.