Evaluation and management of postoperative pain anno 2017

Introduction

Modern equine surgery has advanced tremendously over the last decades, resulting in highly advanced surgical procedures. Although both anaesthesia and surgery have progressed concomitantly with a focus on balanced anaesthesia, multimodal analgesia and minimally invasive surgery, some of the procedures performed will inevitably cause moderate to severe pain. Reducing pain to a minimum ensures animal welfare and improves convalescence, consequently resulting in optimised treatment success. Consequently, good pain management is called for.

Optimal pain management is dependent on objective evaluation of pain, and, over the last 2 decades, several studies aiming at identifying behavioural and physiological indicators of pain, have been published, and several pain-scales for objective evaluation of pain in horses have been suggested.

In the same time period, the amount of published studies on pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics and pain management has also increased, all reflecting an increasing awareness and genuine interest in pain management in the horse. This lecture will provide a short overview of the current status and best practice of pain evaluation and management of peri-operative pain in horses. [...]