Surgical Standards for Small Laboratory Rodents Quiz

Surgical Standards for Small Laboratory Rodents

• Poisseuille’s Law explains the fluid dynamics of laminar flow and how a small change in airway diameter leads to a significant increase in airway resistance.
• Ventilators for small mammals, particularly intubated rodents, are essential for proper ventilation.
• The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals provides surgical standards and emphasizes the importance of presurgical planning, personnel training, anesthesia, aseptic technique, and postoperative care.
• Pre-operative preparation involves patient preparation, equipment sterilization, and assessing anesthetic depth using reflexes like the pedal reflex in mice.
• Anesthesia in small mammals progresses through stages 1 to 4, with stage 4 being undesirable due to medullary paralysis and respiratory arrest.
• Peri-operative monitoring in large mammals requires specialized monitors for temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate, pulse oximetry, capnography, and blood pressure.
• Hypothermia is the number one cause of perioperative death, making heat regulation and fluid administration crucial during peri-operative support.
• Post-procedural monitoring, pain management, and distress assessment are required by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), emphasizing the importance of record-keeping and pain scoring systems.
• Investigators should consider that procedures causing pain or distress in humans may also cause pain or distress in other animals, as outlined in U.S. Government Principle IV.
• Pain scoring systems in rodents require objective criteria, extensive training of observers, and remote observation techniques such as videotaping and grimace scales for accurate assessment.
• The Grimace Scale, used for pain assessment in rodents, involves assessing orbital tightening, nose/cheek flattening, ear changes, and whisker change, with higher scores indicating a painful animal.
• Mouse and rat grimace scales use specific criteria to assess pain, and accurate pain scoring requires extensive observation and baseline scoring for comparison.

Principles of Anesthesia and Analgesia in Animal Research

• Procedures causing more than momentary pain/distress require sedation, analgesia, or anesthesia
• Anesthesia, sedation, and analgesia are used for surgery, certain lab procedures, handling animals safely, and decreasing stress during minimally invasive procedures
• Local anesthetics include nerve blocks and infiltration, using drugs like lidocaine and bupivacaine
• Analgesics like opioids and NSAIDs are used for pain management, but may interfere with research results and require dilution
• Administration of analgesia can be via IP, SQ, or PO methods, with various options for PO administration
• Drug doses for small mammals and non-traditional species are found in textbooks, journal articles, and formularies, and may require pilot studies or extrapolation if not available
• Drug dilution for small rodents is typically necessary for accurate dosing, considering factors like ease of administration and animal comfort
• Common usage dosage notes for certain medications, such as oxytocin, ketoprofen, tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfa, and enrofloxacin, are provided
• Anesthetics can be injectable or inhalant, each with pros and cons, and may include specific cocktails or agents based on the type of research
• Inhalant anesthesia, commonly using isoflurane, requires specialized equipment and considerations for specific species
• Intubation of small rodents is not routinely done due to Poisseuille’s Law, which relates to the diameter and length of the tube and the flow of gas
• Poisseuille’s Law states that the flow of gas is inversely proportional to the length and directly proportional to the fourth power of the radius, making intubation challenging for small rodents

Surgical Standards for Small Laboratory Rodents

• Poisseuille’s Law explains the fluid dynamics of laminar flow and how a small change in airway diameter leads to a significant increase in airway resistance.
• Ventilators for small mammals, particularly intubated rodents, are essential for proper ventilation.
• The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals provides surgical standards and emphasizes the importance of presurgical planning, personnel training, anesthesia, aseptic technique, and postoperative care.
• Pre-operative preparation involves patient preparation, equipment sterilization, and assessing anesthetic depth using reflexes like the pedal reflex in mice.
• Anesthesia in small mammals progresses through stages 1 to 4, with stage 4 being undesirable due to medullary paralysis and respiratory arrest.
• Peri-operative monitoring in large mammals requires specialized monitors for temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate, pulse oximetry, capnography, and blood pressure.
• Hypothermia is the number one cause of perioperative death, making heat regulation and fluid administration crucial during peri-operative support.
• Post-procedural monitoring, pain management, and distress assessment are required by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), emphasizing the importance of record-keeping and pain scoring systems.
• Investigators should consider that procedures causing pain or distress in humans may also cause pain or distress in other animals, as outlined in U.S. Government Principle IV.
• Pain scoring systems in rodents require objective criteria, extensive training of observers, and remote observation techniques such as videotaping and grimace scales for accurate assessment.
• The Grimace Scale, used for pain assessment in rodents, involves assessing orbital tightening, nose/cheek flattening, ear changes, and whisker change, with higher scores indicating a painful animal.
• Mouse and rat grimace scales use specific criteria to assess pain, and accurate pain scoring requires extensive observation and baseline scoring for comparison.