Abstract

Surgery is a stressful procedure for an animal and it is crucial for good research that this stress is minimized. In our laboratory we are using telemetric transmitters for measuring blood pressure and heart rate in rats. The implantation of a telemetric transmitter is a major surgery. The transmitter was placed subcutaneously on the flank and the catheter in the femoral artery. The surgery lasted between 51 and 90 minutes. The first 7 rats operated in our laboratory were placed in single cages to recover, as often recommended, and 4 of them removed their stitches. To minimize this kind of post surgical complication, a routine for the implantation procedure was thereafter developed. The surgery was performed under aseptic conditions. Isoflourane anaesthesia was used with preoperative analgesia (s.c. buprenorphine). The incision was closed using intra cutaneous stitching to avoid accessible suture knots. The rats were kept on a warm mat (37°C) during the entire procedure and the mat was placed in the cage after surgery and not removed until the rat was up and walking. The sterile surgical paper drape used during the operation was placed in the cage with the rat. In addition, a small pot with feed pellets soaked in water was placed in the cage. As soon as the rat was fully conscious, it was placed back with it’s cage mate and the surgical paper drape was left in the cage. To minimize the extent to which the rats bite at the stitches, surgical paper tape was placed on one paw and on the fur of the body of the rat. Furthermore, the rats were given a few honey puffs to give them one more thing to divert their attention from the wound. Seventeen rats were operated as described above. No rats were given antibiotics. No infections were seen in any of the rats. All rats recovered from the anaesthesia very quickly and most rats were eating within an hour. The day after surgery it was clear that the rats really used the surgical drapes as they were very much manipulated and most rats had built a nest from the drape. No cage mates were observed to bite at the incisions and only one rat touched its own stitches. In conclusion, surgical procedures should always be performed during strict aseptic conditions and recovery is improved by placing the rat in a cage with enrichment and a cage mate

Published in

Conference

37th Scand-LAS Symposium on Laboratory Animal Science

SLU Authors

• Cvek, Katarina

  • Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Veterinary Science
Animal and Dairy Science


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/24154