Impact of Surgical Severity and Analgesic Treatment on Plasma Corticosterone in Rats during Surgery

Abstract

Tissue injury and anaesthesia during surgery induce a stress response associated with increased glucocorticoid secretion from the adrenal glands. This response alters the normal physiology and may cause postoperative morbidity, as well as affect the results during acute experiments. The aim of the present investigation was to study the effect of surgical severity and analgesic treatment on circulating corticosterone in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Male rats were treated with either lidocaine infiltrated during surgery, buprenorphine (0.05 or 0.1 mg/kg subcutaneously) or saline subcutaneously. Each treatment group was subjected to either arterial catheterisation or arterial catheterisation and laparotomy. A catheter was inserted in the common carotid artery and blood was collected during surgery and during anaesthesia 6 h after surgery. Lidocaine treatment reduced the corticosterone levels compared to saline treatment after catheterisation but not after laparotomy. Buprenorphine treatment reduced the corticosterone levels during the first hour after surgery after both catheterisation and laparotomy. The higher buprenorphine dose led to an earlier and more pronounced reduction, especially after laparotomy. In the present study, the corticosterone response during surgery in laboratory rats is correlated with the severity of the procedure, and buprenorphine reduces the surgical stress response more effectively than lidocaine treatment.

Plasma concentrations of corticosterone and buprenorphine in rats subjected to jugular vein catheterization

“…SEM: standard error of the mean; SC: subcutaneous; VI: voluntary ingestion; SD: Sprague- Dawley ................................................................................................................................................ different levels of reduction of corticosterone during surgery. 31 The impact of Nutella w as a vehicle on the corticosterone response is not fully known. However, in a recent investigation, no differences in postoperative plasma corticosterone levels were found in rats that were not treated with any analgesia, with either no vehicle or Nutella w as a vehicle.…”

Impact of different analgesic depths and abdominal trauma of different severities on stress and recovery of rats undergoing total intravenous anesthesia

“…For the exploratory laparotomy, the surgeon’s index finger was inserted into the peritoneal cavity for gut exploration for 2 minutes and a 10 cm long section of small intestine was externalized, kneaded moderately for 5 minutes, and then returned 2,15. Surgical wounds were wiped with sterile gauze and the peritoneum, muscle layer, and skin layer were sutured separately with 4.0 Mersilk thread (Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, USA) 16. The duration of surgery was ~30 minutes and anesthesia lasted ~1 hour.…”

The effect of isoflurane anaesthesia and vasectomy on circulating corticosterone and ACTH in BALB/c mice

“…In contrast to the standard procedure of vasectomy in the facility, no analgesia was provided to any animal in the present study. Analgesic treatment with common used opioids, NSAIDs or local analgesia may besides reducing pain sensitivity and post-operative pain behaviour, affect the glucocorticoids level as demonstrated in various species and experimental setups [19,26,49,71,72,86]. Analgesia was therefore withheld as it would likely interfere with the pain and stress reaction in mice subjected to surgery.…”