This randomized, masked clinical trial aimed to compare analgesia achieved with carprofen vs tramadol in dogs post-enucleation. Though there are many published studies on the efficacy of carprofen to treat moderate postsurgical pain in dogs, there are little published data regarding analgesic efficacy of oral tramadol for postsurgical or chronic pain. The authors hypothesized that tramadol, because of its suggested multimodal analgesic properties, would provide better postoperative pain control than carprofen.
Forty-three dogs presented for routine enucleation were assigned to groups receiving either carprofen or tramadol orally 2 hours before surgery and 12 hours after first dose. Identical premedication (including hydromorphone) and inhalant anesthesia protocols were followed. A previously validated pain scoring system, using 5 behavioral categories, and a visual analog scale (VAS) were used to evaluate pain at baseline and multiple time points postoperatively, up to 30 hours postextubation. If total pain score was ≥9 (of 20), a behavioral category score was ≥3 (of 3 or 4), or VAS score was ≥35 (of 100) with a positive palpation score, hydromorphone was given as rescue analgesia and treatment failure recorded. There were no differences in age, sex, or baseline pain scores between groups. However, significantly more dogs receiving tramadol required rescue analgesia (6/21) than those receiving carprofen (1/22). Pain andVAS scores decreased linearly over time. Results suggest carprofen may provide superior analgesia to tramadol in dogs undergoing enucleation.
