Effect of Intraarticular bupivacaine administration on postoperative pain relief after arthrotomic or arthroscopic management of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in dogs

The goal of the study was to disclose superiority of either arthroscopy or arthrotomy in the treatment of CCL rupture with respect to post-surgical pain, to find whether bupivacame administered intraarticularly is of any value in reducing postoperative pain, and through the present pain scoring system consisting of degree of the lameness, CPS and VAS to recommend therapeutical plan of CCL repair offering the better analgesia. Thirty-seven dogs with cranial crucial ligament (CCL) rupture were randomly assigned to arthrotomy (20 dogs) or arthroseopy (17 dogs). The dogs were subjected to the intraarticular administration of bupivacame 2.5 mg/kg or saline 0.5 ml/kg (control group) after the closure of joint capsule, the two protocols being distributed at random. Postoperative analgesia was assessed with regard to the degree of the lameness, cumulative pain score (CPS) and visual analogue scale (VAS), recorded at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 and 24 hours after intraarticular administration of bupivacame or saline. Postoperative analgesia was most of the time significantly (p < 0.01) better in dogs that underwent arthroscopy and received bupivacame intraarticularly when compared to the other groups. There was no significant difference in postoperative analgesia between arthroscopic control group and arthrotomy groups, both with and without bupivacame. The results of this study suggest that intraarticular administration of bupivacame after arthroscopic surgical management of cranial crucial ligament rupture provides satisfactory postoperative analgesia 24 hours after the arthroscopy.