Recent Advancements in Equine Anesthesia

Anesthesia is a medical specialty focused on risk management and patient safety. Although it has been observed that the positive trends in the frequency of equine anesthesia-related morbidity and mortality remain clear, the numbers reported in the literature are still controversial and show large variability, and most importantly, are still too high.

With increasing concerns about equine pain management and safety of general anesthesia, advances in this field are important, ranging from sedation for standing procedures, to balanced protocols based on modern volatile anesthetics for emergency surgeries. Further pain recognition and pain management have advanced within the last 20 years, but there is still a long way to go.

This Research Topic gives an overview of recent advancements made in multiple fields of equine anesthesia:

- Novel protocols for standing sedation for diagnostic imaging and surgery
- Equine field anesthesia: challenges and solutions
- Total intravenous and partial intravenous protocols for elective and emergency procedures
- New methods for pain assessment and pain management in horses
- Perianesthetic morbidity and mortality with the new volatile anesthetic Desflurane in horses
- New directions in large animal ventilation