Anesthetic and analgesic effects of pre-emptive analgesia with morphine, butorphanol, or buprenorphine were evaluated in 160 dogs. All dogs were premedicated by an intravenous injection (IV) of acepromazine 0.005 mg/kg with an intramuscular injection (IM) of morphine 0.3 mg/kg (group ACP-MOR, n=40), butorphanol 0.3 mg/kg (group ACP-BTR, n=40), or buprenorphine 0.02 mg/kg (group ACP-BUP, n=40), or without opioid (group ACP, n=40). All dogs were anesthetized by ketamine 5.0 mg/kg IV followed by intratracheal intubation. Surgical anesthesia was maintained by inhalation anesthesia with 50% nitrous oxide-50% oxygen-sevoflurane. All dogs received ketoprofen 1.0 mg/kg IM and buprenorphine 0.01 mg/kg IM after surgery as post-operative pain treatment. The end-expiratory concentration of sevofluranc during surgery was significantly reduced by the opioid combination (1.9∼2.2% in group ACP vs 1.7∼1.9% in groups ACP-MOR, ACP-BTR and ACP-BUP ; p<0.01). Opioid combination had a minimum side effect on cardiopulmonary function in dogs during anesthesia. Post-operative pain was acceptable level in all dogs. Dogs of group ACP-MOR showed more comfortable attitude in postoperative period than those of group ACP (p<0.05).

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The effect of gabexate mesilate for cytokine gene expression by surgical stress was examined by reverse transcription-PCR. As the result, there was no difference on IL-10 gene expression. However, there was the significant increase on TNF-α and IFN-γ gene expressions. From these results, although gabexate mesilate seldom showed the effect which suppressed the pro-inflammatory cytokine production in slight surgical stress, the possibility of improving the lowering of immune function in the postoperative as the another side was indicated.

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