Abnormal motor activity during anaesthesia in a dog: a case report

Abstract

Seizures or convulsions that occur during anaesthesia in veterinary patients are infrequently reported in the literature. Consequently, the incidence of such events is unknown. Several drugs commonly used in clinical veterinary anaesthesia have been shown to induce epileptiform activity in both human clinical patients and experimental candidates. The present case report describes convulsions in a four-year old male Bernese mountain dog during maintenance of anaesthesia with isoflurane after premedication with acepromazine and methadone followed by co-induction with propofol and ketamine. The dog had no history of previous convulsions. The use of several sedative and anaesthetic drugs makes it difficult to find one single causative pharmaceutical.

The Importance of Refining Anesthetic Regimes to Mitigate Adverse Effects in Very Young and Very Old Wild Animals: the European Badger (Meles Meles)

“…The effect is consistent with the proconvulsant properties reported for ketamine [31,32] during anaesthesia involving both humans [29] and animals (mostly dogs: [31,32]). Ketamine increases the release of endogenous excitatory amino acids such as glutamate and aspartate [36] and is generically contraindicated for animals with pre-existing seizure disorders.…”

“…In geriatric badgers > 8 yrs old, ketamine appeared to induce tonic-clonic seizures in some individuals, as noted in susceptible humans [29] and dogs [30,31,32]. Furthermore, all four (repeatedly) affected individuals were females, where Monteiro et al [33] report that female dogs are prone to more frequent cluster seizures than males, possibly due to pro-convulsan effects of oestrogen which enhances neuronal excitability [34].…”

Intravenous Ketamine Bolus(es) for the Treatment of Status Epilepticus, Refractory Status Epilepticus, and Cluster Seizures: A Retrospective Study of 15 Dogs

“…Subjectively, the authors have not yet observed significant adverse effects associated with KET 5 mg/kg IV bolus when used for prolonged seizure activity. KET has been reported to have potentially a proconvulsant effect in veterinary patients, with up to 20% of cats in one study and reports of dogs developing seizures after induction with KET IV ( 71 – 73 ). The reasons why KET may be proconvulsant for some patients are not completely understood, but a genetic pre-disposition may exist, since a phenotypic pre-disposition was described in the feline cohort with only all of the cats with prominent black or dark brown stripes on their hair coat developing seizures ( 71 ).…”

Ketamine administration in idiopathic epileptic and healthy control dogs: Can we detect differences in brain metabolite response with spectroscopy?

“…The use of ketamine in canine epilepsy has undergone a paradigm shift in recent years. Historically, it has been suggested to avoid ketamine in epileptic humans and dogs due to its proconvulsive properties (1)(2)(3)(4)(5), but in recent years, ketamine has been increasingly promoted as a game changer for status epilepticus in human (6)(7)(8)(9) as well as in veterinary medicine (10)(11)(12).…”

“…This electroconvulsive phenomenon coincided with the peak concentration of ketamine in the arterial blood. This finding, together with case reports of dogs experiencing seizure after ketamine administration, most likely contributed to the fact that people were reluctant to use ketamine in epileptic animals (4,5).…”