In our division of anesthesia and pain management, we are at the forefront of groundbreaking research aimed at finding alternatives to the use of analgesic opioids for controlling perioperative pain in animals. Our main research interest revolves around developing innovative approaches to perioperative pain management through regional anesthesia techniques. Regional anesthesia involves the administration of local anesthetics near specific nerves, ensuring complete desensitization of various anatomical regions. Compared to opioids, regional anesthesia provides superior pain relief, enhancing patient comfort and recovery after surgery while reducing hospitalization time. It is also an effective method to minimize or eliminate opioid use, thereby decreasing perioperative side effects such as nausea, vomiting, and impairment of the immune system.
In response to the national opioid shortage, our anesthesia laboratory has played a crucial role in advancing regional anesthesia techniques as an alternative tool for effectively treating perioperative pain in veterinary medicine.
Contributions: Our research group has developed several novel locoregional anesthesia techniques, now employed worldwide to treat perioperative pain in companion animals. Most of the animals undergoing surgical procedures in our hospital receive locoregional anesthesia, with the majority of these techniques originating from our laboratory.
Research Focus: Our experimental and clinical research has concentrated on developing safe and effective ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia techniques. We aim to provide perioperative analgesia in animals and develop efficient methods for teaching these techniques to students, residents, and anesthesiologists. Our technique development has focused on covering various surgeries, including abdominal (i.e., TAP block, QL block), thoracic (i.e., intercostal blocks, thoracic paravertebral blocks), orthopedic limb surgery (lumbosacral plexus block, RUMM block, subscalene block, GIN plane block, lateral pre-iliac and parasacral block), spinal surgery (ESP block), and more, ensuring faster recovery and fewer complications associated with anesthesia and surgery.
Chronic Pain Management: Our interest extends to developing techniques for alleviating chronic pain conditions in veterinary patients. Collaborating with the University of Buenos Aires, we developed and introduced to the clinical practice the “periscapular hip desensitization block (PHD block),” providing successful pain relief in dogs suffering from hip osteoarthritis. This technique proves particularly useful in animals unresponsive to conventional oral pain medications or while awaiting surgical correction.
Oncological Pain Relief: Several of our regional anesthesia techniques are employed in animals undergoing oncological surgery to relieve pain associated with surgery.
Evidence from studies involving humans and laboratory animals suggests that insufficient control of perioperative pain and the use of opioids may impact the immune system, exerting a negative influence on cancer recurrence after surgery. Given that regional anesthesia offers superior pain relief, reduces opioid consumption, and mitigates the stress response to surgery, one of our future research objectives is to investigate whether regional anesthesia techniques are associated with enhanced immune system activity, potentially reducing the chances of cancer recurrence and metastasis in animals undergoing oncological surgeries.
Explore our cutting-edge research in locoregional anesthesia and join us in advancing the field of veterinary pain management.
For a full list of publications, visit Regional anesthesia publication list