Local and Regional Anaesthetic Techniques in Canine Ovariectomy: A Review of the Literature and Technique Description

Canine ovariectomy is an elective surgery with a moderate level of pain. Despite its relative simplicity, it requires surgical pain management. This study aimed to collect all recent information about local and regional anaesthetic/analgesic techniques in a review of the literature describing the technique utilised. The various procedures described in this review use local anaesthetics to improve analgesia in the routine systemic anaesthetic protocol. The approach described in this paper is called multimodal analgesia and is used in addition to the normal standard anaesthetic protocol. These techniques proved effective in minimising responses to the surgical stimulus and ensured adequate intraoperative and postoperative analgesia. The routine use of multimodal analgesia is considered a useful alternative for pain management in canine ovariectomy, in that it minimises patient suffering, improves the recovery of rescue analgesia, increases drug savings, and improves animal outcomes. In addition, the use of these local and regional techniques ensures satisfactory analgesic coverage that lasts for the first hours postoperatively.