Abstract
BackgroundIt has become widely accepted that whenever animals are used in scientific procedures, the 3Rs principle of replacement, reduction and refinement described by William Russell and Rex Burch should be adhered to. Animals should be replaced with non-sentient alternatives if possible, the number of animals used should be reduced and experimental procedures should be refined to minimise pain, suffering and distress. Administration of analgesic agents to animals undergoing surgical procedures is a refinement used to alleviate pain. In this study, a structured literature review was carried out to examine current trends in analgesic administration to rabbits undergoing experimental surgical procedures.Results128 papers from 51 peer-reviewed journals were selected for inclusion in this review. Reporting administration of systemic analgesia to rabbits in peer-reviewed scientific papers increased significantly from 16% to 50% between 1995-1997 and 2005-2007 (P < 0.001). Papers that reported ethical approval were more likely than papers that did not specify approval to report systemic analgesic administration (P < 0.001). When systemic analgesics were administered, buprenorphine was the most frequently used agent and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were used less frequently than opioids in both time periods.ConclusionsAlthough this review provides evidence that systemic analgesic administration to rabbits undergoing surgical procedures is increasing, rabbits do not always receive analgesia when they undergo experimental surgery. Other practices in rabbit perioperative care that could be improved, highlighted by this survey include: 1) changing the timing of analgesic administration by giving systemic analgesics pre- or perioperatively rather than only postoperatively, 2) using multimodal analgesia when pain is likely to be moderate to severe and 3) increasing the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and use of other techniques such as epidural analgesia particularly for orthopaedic procedures.
Highlights
It has become widely accepted that whenever animals are used in scientific procedures, the 3Rs principle of replacement, reduction and refinement described by William Russell and Rex Burch should be adhered to
Orthopaedic procedures were described in 50% of papers from 1995 to 1997 and 57% of papers from 2005 to 2007
Administration of systemic analgesia to rabbits undergoing experimental surgical procedures increased significantly (P < 0.001) from 16% to 50% between the two time periods
Summary
It has become widely accepted that whenever animals are used in scientific procedures, the 3Rs principle of replacement, reduction and refinement described by William Russell and Rex Burch should be adhered to. Administration of analgesic agents to animals undergoing surgical procedures is a refinement used to alleviate pain. A structured literature review was carried out to examine current trends in analgesic administration to rabbits undergoing experimental surgical procedures. This study was undertaken to gain an indication as to how widely one clear refinement, administration of analgesics to prevent pain in animals undergoing surgery, had been implemented in rabbits. The overall aim of this study was to follow up on a smaller previous study [8] and examine whether reported practices in analgesic administration to laboratory rabbits undergoing experimental surgery are optimal. We aimed to: 1) examine whether systemic analgesic administration to rabbits is increasing, 2) evaluate changes in the administration of analgesics in various forms including local anaesthesia and anaesthetic agents with analgesic components and 3) examine trends in the reporting of other animal details such as reporting ethical approval and number/gender of rabbits used
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
