Abstract
Objective
To test the effectiveness and safety of tramadol plus metamizole combined or not with
a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) for treating moderate to severe chronic
neoplastic pain in dogs, and its impact on quality of life (QL).
Study design
Prospective, uncontrolled, open-label, clinical study.
Animals
Sixty nine client-owned dogs with multiple forms of cancer and visual analog scale
(VAS) pain score ≥40 after receiving NSAIDs for at least 7 days.
Methods
The MN group received metamizole + NSAID, MNT group received metamizole + NSAID +
tramadol and MT group received metamizole + tramadol. Pain was scored by the 0 to
100 mm VAS (0 = no pain, 100 = worst pain) and analgesic therapy was considered effective
if 25 mm differences in VAS scores were observed between day 0 and the follow ups.
The QL was evaluated according to a 0 to 36 scoring method for dogs (0 = worst, 36
= best) and side effects were recorded. Data were registered at day 0 (baseline) and
at the first and second follow ups (7 and 14 days after day 0, respectively).
Results
The MN group had less analgesia at day 7 (25%) and day 14 (42%) than MNT (59%, p = 0.0274; 76%, p = 0.0251, respectively) and MT groups (69%, p = 0.0151; 81%, p = 0.0341, respectively). The QL scores were lower in the MN group at the first (score
23) and second follow up (score 26) than in MNT (27, p = 0.0847; 30, p = 0.0002) and MT (28, p = 0.0384; 31, p = 0.0001) groups. Side effects were more commonly observed in the MN group (87%)
than in MNT (24%, p < 0.0001) and MT groups (25%, p = 0.0003) at the first follow up.
Conclusions and clinical relevance
Tramadol plus metamizole combined or not with NSAID were well tolerated and clinically
effective to treat moderate to severe pain in dogs with cancer and improved QL.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
February 27,
2012
Received:
April 8,
2011
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Association of Veterinary Anaesthetists and American College of Veterinary Anesthesia and Analgesia. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
