Lumbo-sacral epidural anaesthesia as a complement to dissociative anaesthesia during scrotal herniorrhaphy of livestock pigs in the field

Background

In Sweden, scrotal or inguinal herniorrhaphy of livestock pigs in the field has traditionally been an important part of the surgical skills training of veterinary students. Few substances meet the legal requirements for field anaesthesia of production animals in the European Union but a protocol based on azaperone-detomidine-butorphanol-ketamine does. Unfortunately the anaesthesia is characterised by unpredictable duration and depth and of abrupt awakenings which is not acceptable from an animal welfare perspective and impedes surgical training. Lumbo-sacral epidural analgesia is proven to provide sufficient analgesia to allow abdominal surgery, but there are few reports on the field use of this loco-regional technique. The study aim was to evaluate whether lumbo-sacral anaesthesia can be safely and successfully used in the field by a veterinary student and whether the combination of dissociative and lumbo-sacral epidural anaesthesia improves analgesia and anaesthesia to guarantee animal welfare during herniorrhaphy in livestock pigs, enabling surgical skills training.

Results

Pigs in the control-group (placebo) responded significantly stronger to surgery, with five out of 11 requiring additional doses of detomidine and ketamine. There were no significant differences between groups in respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure, SpO₂ or blood gases. SpO₂ levels <94 % were recorded in several pigs in both groups. No post-injection complications were reported at follow-up.

Conclusions

The results from this study showed that lumbo-sacral epidural anaesthesia with lidocaine could successfully be administered during dissociative anaesthesia of livestock pigs by a veterinary student and without reported post-injection complications. It improved analgesia and anaesthesia during herniorrhaphy of sufficient duration to enable surgical skills training. The risks and consequences of hypoxaemia and hypoventilation should be considered.     

Experimental porcine eperythrozoonosis: T-lymphocyte suppression and misdirected immune responses

Immune responses and hematologic alterations were investigated in splenectomized pigs after IM inoculation with Eperythrozoon suis. Early hematologic alterations were massive parasitism of RBC, severe hypoglycemia, moderate bilirubinemia, and mild anemia; later findings included severe anemia, minimal parasitism of RBC, spontaneous agglutination of RBC at 25 C and 4 C which was reversible at 37 C, transient thrombocytopenia, and mild bilirubinemia. The humoral immune responses consisting of a transitory hyperglobulinemia and increase of indirect hemagglutination (IHA) titers against E suis were attributed to immunoglobulin M cold agglutinins. Cell-mediated immune responses, measured by phytohemagglutinin- and pokeweed mitogen-induced lymphocyte blastogenesis, were reduced after massive parasitemia. Blastogenesis induced by Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide mitogen was increased before the hyperglobulinemia and an increase in IHA titer. There was an increase in the uptake of [3H]thymidine by lymphocytes cultured without mitogens after the decline in total globulin concentration and IHA titer.     

Calicivirus isolation from three species of primates: an incidental finding

Calicivirus isolations were made from 3 species of subhuman primates. Viruses were recovered from gingival lesions associated with periodontal disease in a spider monkey, from the oropharynx of a healthy silver leaf langur, and from the spleen of a lowland gorilla that had died of systemic coccidioidomycosis. Based on the results of cross-neutralization tests, all 3 isolates were serologically indistinguishable from a primate calicivirus Pan paniscus type 1. These isolations appeared to be incidental in nature and could not be associated causally with any specific disease entity.