ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Anesthesiology and Animal Pain Management
This article is part of the Research TopicCardiac anaesthesia in veterinary medicine: recent advances and innovationView all 8 articles
Anaesthetic management and complications during transvenous pacemaker implantation in dogs
Provisionally accepted
Gabrielly Moreira dos Santos Oliveira1*
Mayara Travalini De Lima1*
Alessandro Rodrigues de Carvalho Martins1Adan William de Melo Navarro1Daniele Midori Kakimoto Higa1
Renata Sayuri Akabani1
Denise Tabacchi Fantoni1,2- 1UFAPE Veterinary Hospital, São Paulo, Brazil
- 2Universidade de Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
With the growing number of veterinary centers performing pacemaker implantation in small animals, understanding anesthetic management of these procedures has become increasingly important. This retrospective study reviewed 18 anesthetic procedures for transvenous pacemaker implantation in dogs treated at a veterinary referral center in Brazil between 2024 and 2025. All dogs underwent clinical and laboratory evaluation, electrocardiography and/or Holter monitoring, and echocardiography. Intraoperative monitoring included continuous assessment of heart rate, electrocardiography, respiratory rate, end-tidal CO₂, oxygen saturation, temperature, and invasive or non-invasive blood pressure. Continuous variables were expressed as mean ± SD or median (range) according to data distribution assessed by the Shapiro–Wilk test. Group comparisons were performed using Student's t-test or Mann–Whitney U test, and categorical variables were analyzed using chi-square or Fisher's exact test (p < 0.05). Sixteen dogs underwent 18 anesthetic events, including two reinterventions. Third-degree atrioventricular block was the main indication for pacemaker implantation. Anesthetic protocols were individualized according to patient comorbidities. Hypotension was the most frequent anesthetic complication (27.7%) and was successfully managed with fluid therapy and vasoactive support. Electrode migration occurred in 11% of procedures and required reintervention. No perioperative deaths were recorded. Individualized anesthetic management combined with temporary external pacing support resulted in satisfactory perioperative outcomes. Prospective studies with larger populations are warranted to establish standardized anesthetic protocols for dogs undergoing pacemaker implantation.
Keywords: Anesthesia, Atrioventricular Block, dog, Hemodynamics, pacemaker
Received: 26 Nov 2025; Accepted: 28 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Oliveira, Travalini De Lima, Martins, Navarro, Higa, Akabani and Fantoni. 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:
Gabrielly Moreira dos Santos Oliveira
Mayara Travalini De Lima
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.