Institute for Laboratory Animal Science and Experimental Surgery, RWTH Aachen University, Faculty of Medicine, Germany.
Institute for Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Germany.
Lab Anim. 2020 Dec;54(6):525-535. doi: 10.1177/0023677220911680. Epub 2020 Mar 30.
The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate whether behavioral or locomotor tests (Open Field (OF), rotarod (RR), and CatWalk (CW)) can help assess the severity of laparotomy in rats.The new EU Directive (2010/63/EU) mandates severity assessment in experiments involving animals. However, validated and objective methods are needed to relate trial-specific monitoring results to the degree of distress caused to individual animals. Therefore, we focused on non-invasive or minimally invasive, simple, and convenient severity assessment methods in a surgical model.To evaluate surgical severity in this model, we compared moving velocity among three commonly used behavioral test methods (OF, RR, and CW) after midline laparotomy within postoperative 7 days.In this study, 30 adult male Wistar Han rats ( = 10 per test) were trained in their assigned test method and subsequently subjected to surgery. Severity scoring was performed daily using a modified score sheet developed previously. In addition, blood and fecal samples were collected to analyze surgical and postoperative corticosterone metabolite levels. We found significant differences among the experimental groups in terms of the analyzed parameters. In this context, the OF test was found to be the most suitable method for severity assessment after laparotomy in rats.
本初步研究旨在评估行为或运动测试（旷场试验（OF）、转棒试验（RR）和猫道试验（CW））是否有助于评估大鼠剖腹术的严重程度。新的欧盟指令（2010/63/EU）要求在涉及动物的实验中进行严重程度评估。然而，需要验证和客观的方法将特定试验的监测结果与个别动物所受到的痛苦程度联系起来。因此，我们专注于在手术模型中使用非侵入性或微创、简单和方便的严重程度评估方法。为了评估该模型中的手术严重程度，我们在术后 7 天内比较了三种常用行为测试方法（OF、RR 和 CW）中的移动速度。在这项研究中，30 只成年雄性 Wistar Han 大鼠（每个测试组 = 10 只）在其指定的测试方法中接受了训练，随后接受了手术。使用之前开发的改良评分表对严重程度进行了每日评分。此外，还收集了血液和粪便样本以分析手术和术后皮质酮代谢物水平。我们发现，在分析的参数方面，实验组之间存在显著差异。在这种情况下，OF 测试被发现是评估大鼠剖腹术后严重程度的最适合方法。
