| Anesthesia of wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) with allometrically scaled doses of ketamine, xylazine, acepromazine and atropine - preliminary report | | | | PACHALY, J. R.; SANT´ANA, D. M. G.; ARAÚJO, E. J. A.; CIFFONI, E. M. G.; ACCO, A.. Anesthesia of wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) with allometrically scaled doses of ketamine, xylazine, acepromazine and atropine - preliminary report. Arq. ciênc. vet. zool. UNIPAR, Umuarama, v.6, n. 2, p. 195, jul./dez., 2003.
RESUMO: Although restraint is one of the most important limiting factors in the using of live laboratory animals in biomedical research, the “ideal” anesthetic protocol for rats is not available. So, researchers employ a wide variety of single drugs or combinations, and many times, even when the methodological objectives of the research are attained, the final results are not satisfactory under the scope of the animal welfare. The combination of ketamine hydrochloride to xylazine hydrochloride, and atropine sulfate is widely used to anesthetize domestic and wild animals but a really effective dosage protocol for laboratory rodents is not defined. This paper reports results of a preliminary evaluation of the efficacy of that combination, associated to acepromazine maleate, in Wistar rats, with drug dosages calculated by the method of interspecific allometric scaling. Allometric scaling extrapolates doses of drugs between animals of different sizes and/or taxa, facilitating the use of data obtained in a “model animal” (animal for which the drug was developed) for the treatment of a “target animal” (wild or domestic patient). The method was recently reviewed by PACHALY & BRITO (2001).
| PALAVRAS-CHAVE: rat, anesthesia, ketamine, xylazine, acepromazine, allometric scaling
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