ANALGESIC EFFECT OF DIPYRONE OR MELOXICAM ON POSTOPERATIVE

PAIN IN CATS UNDERGOING OVARIOHYSTERECTOMY

ANDRADE IS1, OLIVEIRA JP1 , EVANGELISTA MC2, KEMPER B1, KEMPER DAG1
1Faculty
of Veterinary Medicine, Universidade Norte do Paraná campus Arapongas
2Département de sciences cliniques, Faculté de médecine vétérinaire, Université de Montréal

INTRODUCTION RESULTS
Dipyrone (or metamizole) is an analgesic, antipyretic and antispasmodic Age, weight and surgery time were not different between groups
drug with weak anti-inflammatory effect.1 (Table 1).

It is available over-the-counter in some countries, and it is either a There were no significant differences between groups using UNESP-
prescription drug or banned in others due to its controversial potential Botucatu Composite Pain Scale (Figure 1) and Visual Analogue Scale –
for adverse events such as hematologic toxicity (blood dyscrasia) VAS (Figure 2).
described in humans, but causes less kidney, cardiovascular and GI
toxicity than other NSAIDs.2 Three animals on GD (27%) and five animals on GM (45%) required
rescue analgesia (p > 0.05).
Its use has been described in as an effective postoperative analgesic
drug in humans, dogs and horses, however studies in cats are rare.3,4,5 No adverse effect was observed by clinical exam in any group.
GD GM
The objective of this study was to compare the analgesic efficacy of
Age (years) 1.5 ± 0.7 1.4 ± 0.9
dipyrone or meloxicam on postoperative pain in cats undergoing
Weight (kg) 3.0 ± 0.5 3.0 ± 0.8
ovariohysterectomy.
Surgery time (min) 24.0 ± 11.6 32.4 ± 12.2

Table 1 – Demographics of the cats included in this study. Group Dipyrone

MATERIALS AND METHODS (GD, n = 11) and Group Meloxicam (GM, n = 11).

Ethics committee protocol number: 20/16 – CEUA UNOPAR.

Animals and groups: Twenty-two client-owned healthy cats scheduled

to undergo ovariohysterectomy were randomly assigned to two
groups. GD received dipyrone (n = 11; 25 mg/kg) and GM received
meloxicam (n = 11; 0.1 mg/kg); all intravenously after induction of
anesthesia.

Anesthetic protocol: Cats were premedicated with acepromazine (0.15

mg/kg IM), induced with propofol (10 mg/kg IV) and maintained with
isoflurane. A bolus of fentanyl (3 μg/kg IV) was administered prior to
the incision and as needed during surgery.

Pain assessment: Pain was evaluated by the same observer unaware Figure 1 – Boxplots showing Visual Analogic Scale (VAS) scores in dipyrone (GD)
of the treatments hourly up to 6 hours after extubation, using VAS and and meloxicam (GM) groups. Horizontal line indicates the median, the box
UNESP-Botucatu6 pain scales. represents first and third quartiles, whiskers represent maximum and minimum
scores. : mild outlier, + : extreme outlier.
Rescue analgesia: Animals receiving scores equal or higher than 8 in
the UNESP-Botucatu pain scale were administered analgesic rescue
(morphine 0.3 mg/kg IM).

Adverse effects: The occurrence of adverse effects was recorded.

Statistical analysis: Mann-Whitney and Friedman tests were used for

between- and within-group comparisons. Percentages of rescue
analgesia were assessed with Fisher’s exact test.

REFERENCES
Figure 2 – Boxplots showing UNESP-Botucatu scores in dipyrone (GD) and
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represents first and third quartiles, whiskers represent maximum and minimum
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Postoperative Analgesia in Patients with Contraindications for Nonsteroidal Anti- scores. : mild outlier, + : extreme outlier.
Inflammatory Drugs. Pain Pract. 2017; 3:402-408.
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dogs. Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia. 2011; 38 (4): 385-393. Dipyrone and meloxicam provided similar weak analgesia in cats
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butylbromide and a combination of the two in ponies. Vet Rec. 1991;129(17):378-80.
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multidimensional composite pain scale for assessing postoperative pain in cats. BMC Adverse effects were not detected on any group in the perioperative
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