ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Anesthesiology and Animal Pain Management
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1632175
Evaluation of the thoracic epidural spread after caudal thoracic contrast medium injections in cat cadavers.
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Turin, Turin, Italy
- 2Southfields Veterinary Specialists, Cranes Point Gardiners Lane South Basildon Essex SS14 3AP United Kingdom, South Basildon Essex, United Kingdom
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Background: Thoracic epidural anesthesia (TEA) offers significant analgesic benefits in humans undergoing major surgery. However, this technique remains underexplored in feline medicine due to anatomical challenges and limited data on epidural drug distribution. Objective: To assess the feasibility of a paramedian approach and characterize the epidural spread of 0.3 mL/kg of contrast medium administered in 3 consecutive aliquots of 0.1 mL/kg at the 12th-13th thoracic vertebrae (T12-T13) level in cat cadavers. Methods: Seven refrigerated cat cadavers underwent 3 consecutive thoracic epidural administrations of 0.1 ml/kg of iodinated contrast medium (total dose injected 0.3 ml/kg) administered at the T12-T13 interspace using a 25 G, 25 mm Quincke needle via a paramedian technique. Computed tomography was used to evaluate longitudinal and circumferential distribution 5 minutes after each dose. Results: Epidural spread increased significantly with incremental dosing (longitudinal τ = 0.63, p < 0.001; circumferential τ = 0.58, p = 0.001). The percentage of longitudinal and circumferential median spread increase, when compared with the previous dose, was respectively 46% and 45% for D2, and 17% and 70% for D3. The initial injection preferentially spread cranially (p < 0.05), however, cervical segments were reached in only one case, while the sacral segments were never reached. No significant effect of gravity on circumferential spread was observed. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of TEA via a paramedian approach in cats and provides novel insight into epidural fluid distribution patterns.
Keywords: cat, Thoracic epidural anaesthesia, Cadaveric study, Contrast medium spread, Quincke needle
Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 22 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Franci, Santoro, Landi, Manassero and Lardone. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Elena Lardone, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
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