Epidural Analgesia in Sheep and Goats: A Review of Recent Literature

Abstract

This study was carried out to review the current literature concerning recent advances in the techniques, drugs and drug combinations used to induce epidural analgesia in sheep and goats. Data bases such as PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar were searched using key words such as small ruminant anesthesia, local anesthesia in ruminants, and epidural analgesia in sheep and goats to retrieve recently published articles in this subject. Only articles published between 2007 and 2016 were considered. Relevant references in the bibliographies of included articles were also retrieved for review. A total of 14 research papers (7 in sheep and 7 in goats) published in refereed journals between 2007 and 2016 were reviewed. The lumbosacral space was used in 9 and the first intercoccygeal space was used in one article. The most common drugs used to induce epidural analgesia in sheep and goats were 2% lidocaine with and without epinephrine, bupivacaine, ropivacaine, magnesium sulphate, xylazine, ketamine, and tramadol, methadone, and morphine. The results of these studies indicated adequate analgesia for surgical operations of the perineum could be safely concluded in sheep and goats using any of the discussed drugs or their combinations.

Cardiorespiratory and hemogasometric effects of epidural ketamine and its associations with morphine and xylazine in sheep

“…Ketamine is a dissociative agent that acts as an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist. These receptors are directly involved in the transmission and modulation of nociceptive information at the medulla level, and some studies have used epidural ketamine to reduce the transmission of nociceptive stimuli and promote analgesia (Ismail, 2016). Xylazine is the most commonly used α 2 -agonist in large animal internal medicine, and ruminants are more sensitive to this drug than are other species (Kastner, 2006;Rostami & Vesal, 2012).…”

Comperative Study on Anesthetic Effect of Xylazine-Ketamine And Diazepam-Ketamine In Rabbit Model

“…Similar to the findings of other studies, our results showed that clinical findings such as heart rates and respiratory rates reduced from baseline values after induction. The sympathetic effects of ketamine, higher values of the three hemodynamic parameters in the ketamine-diazepam group can be attributed to relatively lesser contribution of diazepam to the induction of anesthesia compared to xylazine (Ismail, 2016). In combination with benzodiazepines and an alpha-2 agonist xylazine, an increase in the quality of analgesia, sedation, anesthesia and recovery, alleviation of anxiety and a decrease in the unwanted ketamine have been demonstrated (Morse et al, 2004).…”