Tramadol is an opiate analgesic used in veterinary medicine, although few studies exist on this drug. The objective of this work was to evaluate the analgesic effect promoted by the administration of tramadol, determined the serum cortisol and blood glucose concentrations of female dogs. For that, 15 animals were used, submitted to the ovaryhysterectomy under general anesthesia with isofluorane. The animals were assigned into three groups. Group 1 (Tep): received epidural tramadol (1.0mg kg-1 diluted in bi-distilled water at 3.0mL final volume), followed by 3.0mL of bi-distilled water applied intravenously fifteen minutes later. Group 2: (Tiv) 3.0mL of bi-distilled water applied via epidural, following intravenous tramadol (1.0mg kg-1 diluted in bi-distilled water at 3.0mL final volume) applied fifteen minutes later. Group 3 (CT): 3.0mL of bi-distilled water applied via epidural, followed by 3.0mL of bi-distilled water applied intravenously fifteen minutes later. The efficacy of each analgesia regimen was evaluated for 12 hours after epidural. There were no significant differences among the experimental groups to the studied variables (P(0.05). Significant differences were observed in each treatment. In the Tep group, there was a serum cortisol increase in the 25 minutes of the transoperatory (M3), in relation to the obtained value right after the anesthesia induction (M2) (P<0.05). In the Tiv and CT groups, we could check an elevation of the variables two (M4) and four (M5) hours of the epidural injection, when compared to the pretreatment (M1) (P<0.05). In these periods, the variables that were studied in the Tep treatment were statistically similar to the pretreatment (M1). According to the results it can be concluded that 1) used methods were sensitive to determine the most stressful surgical moments as well as and, 2) epidural tramadol seems to produce longer analgesia when compared to the intravenous administration.
serum cortisol; blood glucose; tramadol; epidural; intravenous; dog; analgesia; anaesthesia; and ovariohysterectomy
