| dc.description.abstract | Ten adult Leopard Geckos (Eublepharis macularius) about one year old, seven female and three male, consecutively underwent three different anesthesia protocols (one control protocol and two test protocols) to see if these protocols would give an anesthetic and analgesic effect that is sufficient for painful stimulation such as firmly pinching the skin.
First, all animals underwent a control protocol of anesthesia with Alfaxalone (15 mg/kg IM). Then the animals were divided into two groups, and one group was treated with the Butorphanol protocol (Alfaxalone, Meloxicam (1 mg/kg IM) and Butorphanol (2 mg/kg IM)) and the other group was treated with the Tramadol protocol (Alfaxalone, Meloxicam (1 mg/kg IM) and Tramadol (10 mg/kg IM)). At last, both groups were treated with the remaining protocol. Between each experiment was a wash-out period of two weeks.
To measure the effect of the different protocols on anesthesia (loss of consciousness and muscle relaxation), the time to loss of righting reflex and palpebral reflex from the moment of injection with Alfaxalone was measured. Additionally, the duration of the anesthesia from the loss of righting reflex to the moment the animal woke up was compared. For the effect of the protocols on analgesia (loss of pain perception), reaction to painful stimuli (firmly pinching with forceps to simulate cutaneous tissue damage caused by cutting or puncturing the skin for small surgeries) was measured. One animal died of unknown reason after undergoing the control protocol and the Tramadol protocol, thus no information from this animal is available for the Butorphanol protocol. information about the body temperature was collected.
The loss of reflexes was not significantly different between protocols, but use of the Butorphanol protocol, and plausibly also the use of the Tramadol protocol, did significantly increase the anesthetic duration, from approximately 21 minutes for the control protocol to 35 and 31 minutes for respectively the Butorphanol and Tramadol protocol. The number of animals that lost pain perception during the experiment did not differ significantly between protocols (2/10 with the control protocol, 3/9 with the Butorphanol protocol, 4/10 with the Tramadol protocol), the duration of loss of pain ranged from 2,3 to 19,5 minutes and there was no significant difference between protocols. Thus, none of the used protocols is a reliable protocol for analgesia in Leopard Geckos. Because the animals showed reaction to painful stimuli, all three protocols are not suitable to be used for surgery without additional means to ensure a deeper anesthetic plane in addition to adequate pain relief., These protocols may be useful for sedation/immobilization for minor acts like handling or imaging,
The mean body temperature of the animals was with approximately 32°C on the high side of the preferred range which might cause a shorter and generally lighter anesthesia. It might be interesting to control or monitor this in further research or clinical cases.
More research on analgesia in reptiles is necessary. | |
