Equine Anesthesia Management and Outcomes
Summary
General anaesthesia in horses poses unique challenges due to their size, physiology and risk during induction, maintenance and recovery phases. Advances in pharmacological protocols now allow balanced anaesthetic approaches combining inhalant agents with intravenous adjuncts to enhance cardiovascular stability and analgesia. Preoperative assessments utilising equine-specific risk classifications guide clinicians in anticipating complications and tailoring perioperative management. Intraoperative monitoring including invasive blood pressure, arterial blood gases and depth of anaesthesia indices has become more sophisticated, facilitating timely interventions to prevent hypoxaemia, hypotension and other adverse events. Recovery remains the most perilous period, with efforts directed towards controlled recumbency support and pharmacological sedation to reduce neuromuscular and respiratory complications. Contemporary research has focused on refining risk scoring, optimising drug infusions and elucidating peri-anaesthetic factors influencing morbidity and mortality. Collectively, these developments have improved outcomes, reduced fatality rates and informed global practice guidelines for equine anaesthesia management.
Research from Nature Portfolio
No recent Nature Portfolio content available.
Equine Anesthesia Management and Outcomes publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in equine anesthesia management and outcomes across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
ASA-PS-Equine: An adaptation of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status classification for assessing preoperative risk in horses.
CHARIOT: Combined Horse Anaesthetic Risk Identification and Optimization Tool, a multifactorial scoring system for predicting anaesthetic risk.
Total Intravenous Anaesthesia (TIVA): Maintenance of anaesthesia solely through continuous intravenous administration of agents without inhalational gases.
Partial Intravenous Anaesthesia (PIVA): A balanced anaesthetic approach combining intravenous infusions with inhalant agents to reduce drug dosages and side-effects.
Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP): The average arterial pressure during a single cardiac cycle, indicative of organ perfusion.
References
- Risk assessment in equine anesthesia: a first evaluation of the usability, utility and predictivity of the two-part CHARIOT. Frontiers in Veterinary Science (2024).
- Xylazine Infusion during Equine Colic Anesthesia with Isoflurane and Lidocaine: A Retrospective Study. Animals (2023).
- Data Collection for the Fourth Multicentre Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Equine Fatalities (CEPEF4) Study: New Technology and Preliminary Results. Animals (2021).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.