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Pain Is A Live Issue

Author: Vétoquinol
Posted: Wednesday 13th July, 2011. 12:54:02

Nearly 500 veterinary surgeons took part in a live webinar on pain management on Wednesday 15th June, courtesy of Vetoquinol. For the first time, the webinar vet platform was able to include video footage as part of the presentation and interactive polls throughout the session allowed vets to really get involved.

The speaker was Dr. Jo Murrell, Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Anaesthesia at Bristol Vet School and holder of The European Diploma in Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia.

Jo described the use of NSAIDs, referring to the ‘balancing act’ between benefits and risks. The speaker outlined guidance to help with decision making on when NSAIDs can be used when there is concurrent liver, kidney or cardiac disease. A gold standard approach was described alongside a protocol for monitoring in high, medium and low risk patients. Only 40 per cent of attendees said they routinely took baseline blood biochemistry prior to starting NSAID treatment.

It is known that there are 17,000 human deaths in the US each year attributed to NSAID administration and nearly every endoscopic study of NSAID usage in animals has shown some evidence of mucosal damage in the absence of overt clinical signs. Yet NSAIDs are one of the few licensed options available to treat long-term pain in animals.

To see the webinar again and download a CPD certificate, or view for the first time, for those that missed the live session, go to www.thewebinarvet.com/vetoquinol-webinars. Jo Murrell will also be answering the many questions posted by participants that there was not sufficient time to answer on the night – see her responses on the webinar vet’s blog, at http://www.thewebinarvet.com/blog.

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