Pain Assessment and Management in Veterinary Anesthesia

Effective pain assessment and management during veterinary anaesthesia are crucial to optimise animal welfare, ensure procedural success and minimise postoperative complications. Pain in veterinary patients is identified by a combination of behavioural cues, physiological parameters and validated scoring systems adapted to different species. Composite scales integrate indicators such as facial expression, posture, vocalisation and autonomic variables to provide a structured approach to assessment. Advances in technology now offer opportunities for automated recognition, while multimodal analgesic protocols combine systemic drugs (opioids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, α2-agonists) with regional or local blocks to target pain pathways at multiple levels. Individualised regimens take account of species, breed, age, surgical procedure and comorbidities. Global guidelines emphasise pre-emptive and preventive strategies, judicious monitoring and adjustment of analgesic depth, and a balance between efficacy and safety. Practical applications include tailored infusion rates, judicious selection of adjuvant agents and incorporation of long-acting formulations to enhance recovery and reduce hospitalisation times.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of machine-vision and explainable artificial intelligence to classify ‘pain’ versus ‘no pain’ in cats under clinical conditions. By training models on heterogeneous, multi-breed datasets and comparing landmark-based approaches with deep learning, researchers achieved over 77 % accuracy in recognising pain expressions, pinpointing nasal and oral regions as key features. This work paves the way for objective, real-time monitoring tools that may augment expert assessment and reduce subjectivity in peri-anaesthetic care.

Pain Assessment and Management in Veterinary Anesthesia publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in pain assessment and management in veterinary anesthesia across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Multimodal analgesia: Use of two or more classes of analgesic agents or techniques to achieve synergistic pain relief with lower individual drug doses.

Nociceptive signals: Neural transmissions initiated by tissue damage or inflammation, leading to perception of pain.

Local/regional anaesthesia: Targeted blockade of peripheral or central nerves to prevent transmission of pain signals to the central nervous system.

Liposome-encapsulated bupivacaine: A formulation in which bupivacaine is enclosed within liposomes to allow slow release and prolonged analgesic effect.

Landmark-based approach: In machine-vision analysis, use of predefined anatomical points to extract features for classification tasks.

Composite pain scale: Structured scoring tool combining multiple behavioural and physiological parameters to quantify pain intensity.

References

1. Comprehensive Assessment of the Stability of Selected Coxibs in Variable Environmental Conditions along with the Assessment of Their Potential Hepatotoxicity. Pharmaceutics (2023).
2. Explainable automated pain recognition in cats. Scientific Reports (2023).
3. Local and regional anaesthesia in dogs and cats: Overview of concepts and drugs (Part 1). Veterinary Medicine and Science (2020).