TDK conference 2015

Diagnostic physical and laboratory examination – such as blood sampling- can often be challenging in small mammals. According to the literature and based on clinical experience, we found the cranial vena cava to be the most suitable vessel to puncture. However, venipuncture of the cranial vena cava only appears to be a safe method when applied on convenient patients, using definite and exact movements under proper conditions.

The aim of our work was to facilitate the acquirement of this technique by creating anatomical specimens: an acrylic-based resin system was intravenously injected into rats, so that we earn models that can be used for demonstration and as elements of skillslab. The injection was performed from different approaches on a total of 20 euthanized adult rats. We filled the left (n=1), and the right (n=1) external jugular vein, and also the caudal vena cava (n=3), but finally the simultaneous injection of both external jugular veins (n=15) proved to be most effective. After succesful injections, five methods were tested in order to make the vessels visible: maceration in hydrochloric acid solution containing1,7% (n=1) or 2% (n=1) pepsin, maceration in concentrated sodium hydroxide solution (n=7), conservation in sodium nitrite-enriched acidic solution (n=5), and also using museum beetles (Antrenus museorum) to remove soft tissues from the skeletons and vessels. As a result we obtained models for different purposes: some of them represent the position of the vessels compared to certain points of the skeleton, while others can form a part of the skillslab by practicing the puncture of the cranial vena cava on them.

The photographic documentation and the models obtained proved to be useful teaching instruments in the Clinic of Exotic Animal and Wildlife Medicine of SzIU, Faculty of Veterinary Science, which makes us hope that in the future, similar models can be integrated in the academic education.