Opioid analgesia in horses

Abstract

Opioid analgesics have been the foundation of human pain management for centuries, and their value in animals has increased since it was proposed that it is the veterinarian's duty to alleviate pain whenever it may occur. Compared with other domesticated species, the horse has benefitted less from the increased understanding of opioid pharmacology in animals, because early literature was overlooked and later work, which examined adverse side effects rather than analgesia, concluded that analgesic and excitatory doses were irreconcilably close. More recent studies have indicated a widening role for opioid analgesics in equine pain management, and radioligand studies have revealed a basis for the equine response pattern to opioid analgesics.