• Rodrigo L Marucio, Stelio P L Luna, Francisco J Teixeira Neto, Bruno W Minto, and Eduardo Hatschbach.
• Department of Veterinary Surgery and Anesthesiology, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil, 14870-000.
• Am. J. Vet. Res. 2008 Jul 1;69(7):854-60.

ObjectiveTo evaluate analgesic effects of epidurally administered neostigmine alone or in combination with morphine in dogs after ovariohysterectomy. Animals-40 healthy bitches.ProceduresAfter acepromazine premedication, anesthesia was induced. Dogs randomly received 1 of the following 4 epidural treatments 30 minutes before ovariohysterectomy (n = 10/group): saline (0.9% NaCl) solution (control), morphine (0.1 mg/kg), neostigmine (10 microg/kg), or morphine-neostigmine (0.1 mg/kg and 10 microg/kg, respectively). Analgesia was assessed for 24 hours after surgery by use of a visual analogue scale (VAS; scale of 0 to 10) or numeric descriptive scale (NDS; scale of 0 to 24) and by the need for supplemental analgesia (morphine [0.5 mg/kg, IM] administered when VAS was > or = 4 or NDS was > or = 8).ResultsSignificantly more control dogs (n = 8) received supplemental analgesia, compared with the number of neostigmine-treated dogs (1); no dogs in the remaining groups received supplemental analgesia. Compared with values for the control dogs, the NDS scores were lower for morphine-neostigmine-treated dogs (from 2 to 6 hours and at 12 hours) and for morphine-treated dogs (all time points). The NDS scores were lower for morphine-treated dogs at 3, 12, and 24 hours, compared with values for neostigmine-treated dogs. The VAS was less sensitive than the NDS for detecting differences among groups.Conclusions And Clinical RelevanceEpidurally administered neostigmine reduced the use of supplemental analgesia after ovariohysterectomy in dogs. However, analgesic effects were less pronounced than for epidurally administered morphine or morphine-neostigmine. Adding neostigmine to epidurally administered morphine did not potentiate opioid-induced analgesia.

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