Objective—To develop and validate a health-related quality-of-life scale for dogs with pain secondary to cancer. Design—Questionnaire development. Animals—40 healthy dogs with no history or signs of pain, 20 dogs with dermatologic disease but no signs of pain other than mild pruritus, and 20 dogs with cancer. Procedure—Owners of all dogs completed a questionnaire containing 12 questions with 4 options for each question, and a quality-of-life score ranging from 0 to 36 was calculated. Scores for dogs with cancer were compared with scores for healthy dogs and dogs with dermatologic disease. Results—All owners indicated that the questionnaire was easy to complete. Scores for healthy dogs were significantly different from scores for dogs with cancer and scores for dogs with dermatologic disease. Scores for dogs with dermatologic disease were significantly different from scores for dogs with cancer. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Results suggested that a simple questionnaire may be useful in assessing health-related quality of life in dogs with pain secondary to cancer, in that dogs with cancer had significantly lower scores than did healthy dogs and dogs with dermatologic disease. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2005;226:1354–1358)

Objective—To compare analgesic effects of tramadol, codeine, and ketoprofen administered alone and in combination and their effects on concentrations of blood glucose, serum cortisol, and serum interleukin (IL)-6 in dogs undergoing maxillectomy or mandibulectomy. Animals—42 dogs with oral neoplasms. Procedures—30 minutes before the end of surgery, dogs received SC injections of tramadol (2 mg/kg), codeine (2 mg/kg), ketoprofen (2 mg/kg), tramadol + ketoprofen, or codeine + ketoprofen (at the aforementioned dosages). Physiologic variables, analgesia, and sedation were measured before (baseline) and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 24 hours after surgery. Blood glucose, serum cortisol, and serum IL-6 concentrations were measured 1, 3, 5, and 24 hours after administration of analgesics. Results—All treatments provided adequate postoperative analgesia. Significant increases in mean ± SD blood glucose concentrations were detected in dogs receiving tramadol (96 ± 14 mg/dL), codeine (120 ± 66 mg/dL and 96 ± 21 mg/dL), ketoprofen (105 ± 22 mg/dL), and codeine + ketoprofen (104 ± 16 mg/dL) at 5, 1 and 3, 5, and 3 hours after analgesic administration, respectively, compared with preoperative (baseline) values. There were no significant changes in physiologic variables, serum IL-6 concentrations, or serum cortisol concentrations. Dogs administered codeine + ketoprofen had light but significant sedation at 4, 5, and 24 hours. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Opioids alone or in combination with an NSAID promoted analgesia without adverse effects during the 24-hour postoperative period in dogs undergoing maxillectomy or mandibulectomy for removal of oral neoplasms. (Am J Vet Res 2010;71:1019–1026)