Correlation of post-operative pain and levels of creatin phosphokinase enzyme following ovariohysterectomy in cats

BACKGROUND: Recognition of pain is challenging in veterinarymedicine due to lack of verbal communication anduniversal pain assessment system. Increase in biochemicalparameters have been shown to have direct correlation withlevel of postoperative pain. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of thepresent study is to evaluate the serum levels of CPK and investigateany correlation in serum levels of CPK and postoperativepain following ovariohysterectomy in feline. METHODS:Conventional midline ovariohysterectomy was performed in24 healthy female queens. Serum levels of cortisol, CPK andglucose were measured prior to surgery and at 1 and 3 and 24hours after the surgery. Also, VAS was used to assess level ofpost-operative pain. Data was analyzed using repeated measureANOVA. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used toidentify any correlation between level of pain and CPK afterthe surgery. RESULTS: The score of pain significantly increasedat 1 and 3 hours after the surgery in all of the cats (p=0.001).The concentration of cortisol and CPK significantly increasedafter the surgery in comparison to the values prior to surgery(p<0.001). Also, the concentrations increased significantly at3 hours after the surgery compared to the values at 1 hour afterthe surgery (p<0.001). In 24 hours after the surgery resultsrevealed that serum level of cortisol returned to its normal valuesbut CPK was still higher compared to the values prior tosurgery. Significant correlation was detected between the levelof pain and CPK after surgery (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: It isconcluded that there is a correlation with VAS score of pain andserum levels of Cortisol and CPK at early hours after the surgery.CPK might be used as an indicator of pain in early hoursafter the surgery in feline. However, the assessment of pain incats is not possible based on its values alone.

Keywords:

cortisol , creatin phosphokinase enzyme , feline , post-operative pain