Ceva highlights benefits of buprenorphine for routine analgesic use

Ceva has highlighted data from a UK study that shows how buprenorphine can be effective in routine analgesic use for horses.

The study was conducted by Dr Polly Taylor, a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons specialist in veterinary anaesthesia, and compared the degree of postoperative pain and physiological variables in horses following premedication with either buprenorphine or butorphanol in a general clinical setting.

Involving 89 healthy adult horses from six UK equine veterinary clinics, the study indicated that using the opioid buprenorphine before equine elective general anaesthesia and surgery resulted in better postoperative analgesia than butorphanol.

Moreover, this occurred without causing further physiological disruption than is normally expected of general anaesthesia in horses.

Ceva said the research "helps to clarify any misconceptions, revealing that horses experienced less postoperative pain after buprenorphine than with butorphanol premedication. Buprenorphine did not  cause any more undesirable side effects than butorphanol".

Buprenorphine is the active ingredient in Vetergesic, a potent and long-lasting analgesic product from Ceva for the management of mild to moderately painful surgical and traumatic conditions.