Pre-Anesthetic Blood
Testing for All Pets
An 8-month old Maltese dog
that we will call 'Belle' was admitted to Greens Fork Animal
Hospital in November for a routine spay. The owner reported
that Belle was a normal puppy: bright, alert, active, and always
getting into mischief. The technician who admitted Belle
discussed pre-anesthetic blood testing with Belle's owner which
would allow us to measure liver, kidney function and blood
levels. Once this was discussed Dr. Osborn, who was
surgeon-on-duty for the day, ran-the tests.
It
was found that Belle's liver test was extremely elevated above
the normal range, indicating that Belle's liver was not
functioning properly. After consulting with the owner,
surgery was not performed while Dr. Osborn submitted a full blood
panel to the lab to evaluate Belle's liver function. Dr.
Osborn found that Belle has a porto-systemic shunt, which is a
condition in which blood by-passes the liver instead of going to
that organ to be cleared of toxins like it should be. The
anesthesia drugs we use are metabolized or processed by the liver
and kidneys. If Belle had been anesthetized with this
condition, she may not have survived surgery or if she had
survived, would likely have been sedated for several days while
her liver tried to process the anesthetic drugs.
Luckily, pre-anesthetic
blood tests were run on Bella.. The test involves drawing
blood from the pet after it is dropped off for surgery but before
the animal is anesthetized. We then run tests on the blood
machines in our clinic to screen for liver, kidney and blood
count abnormalities. If no abnormalities are found, we
proceed with anesthesia. If abnormalities are found, we do
not proceed with anesthesia until the pet's owner is consulted
and a plan of action is discussed.