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Postoperative pain in Sprague Dawley rats after liver biopsy by laparotomy versus laparoscopy

Lab Animal volume 44, pages 174–178 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Laparoscopic surgery offers advantages for both animal welfare and quality of experimental data. Compared with laparotomy, laparoscopy is associated with less postoperative pain and faster recuperation in humans and is also associated with less postoperative pain in dogs. Postoperative pain associated with laparotomy and laparoscopy has not been compared in rodents, however. The authors used a validated pain grimace scale to evaluate postoperative pain in male Sprague Dawley rats after liver biopsy by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Rats that underwent laparoscopy showed fewer recognized signs of pain than did rats that underwent laparotomy. The authors suggest that laparoscopy could be used for repeated biopsies in rats, minimizing the number of animals used in pharmacological and toxicological studies.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Instruments used for laparoscopy and biopsy included a rigid insufflator trocar, 2.33-mm flexible-cup biopsy forceps and a rigid laparoscope.
Figure 3: Histological photomicrographs of liver biopsy samples.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Guy Beauchamp (statistician working for the faculty of veterinary medicine of the University of Montreal) for statistical analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Veterinary Biomedicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Montreal, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada

    Liette Préfontaine &  Pascal Vachon

  2. Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Pathology and Microbiology, University of Montreal, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada

    Pierre Hélie

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  1. Liette Préfontaine
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Correspondence to Pascal Vachon.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Préfontaine, L., Hélie, P. & Vachon, P. Postoperative pain in Sprague Dawley rats after liver biopsy by laparotomy versus laparoscopy. Lab Anim 44, 174–178 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.731

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