Altweb Pain Management (Anesthesia/Analgesia) Database

Welcome to the Altweb Pain Management Database.

This database includes information about anesthesia and analgesia for most commonly used laboratory animals, including: rats, mice, primates, dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, guinea pigs, birds, sheep, fish, and exotic species. It provides information about available drugs and the side effects of commonly used drugs. Citations are from publications that have published laboratory animal studies or human clinical studies with relevance to animal research.

This database covers the period 1990 to the present, and is updated quarterly. Almost all of the records--98%--have abstracts. Records have been drawn from three major databases: MEDLINE (with records from TOXLINE as well), AGRICOLA, and AGRIS.

The database offers several fields for searching: author, title, source (journal), and descriptors. You may search by kind of animal, by drug, or by procedure. The database uses the common chemical name for all drugs.

About 50% of the records include dose information. These records will discuss the effects of dose on physiological parameters.

This database was developed by Tim Allen, a technical information specialist with the Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC). Mr. Allen has more than 20 years experience as a research scientist and information specialist. He is a nationally known expert on searching for alternatives. AWIC, a member of the Altweb Project Team, is a federally funded center established to help investigators meet the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act. Their participation in developing and maintaining this database, in collaboration with Altweb, is but one service they provide to the U.S. research community.

This database contains approximately 10,000 records. However, entering as few as two or three keywords will narrow your results quickly to a manageable number of citations.

See also the Search for Alternatives section of Altweb for more databases and resources.

TIPS:

When searching the database, please be as specific as possible. If you are interested in a single kind of animal (e.g., dogs) use that as a keyword. (Be aware that using the plural form of a noun will give different results. You may, for example, want to use "rat OR rats" in the search box.)
If you want more information about a specific drug, consider using the following keywords: effects, adverse-effects, efficacy, potency, endpoints, variables, complications.
If you want to narrow a search and compare one drug with others, use "comparative study" or "comparison" as keywords.
Include specific procedures as keywords if possible: "thoracotomy," "endocrine surgery," "muscle biopsy."
Consider using terms such as "pre-operative," "post-operative" or "dose-response" to further narrow results.
For a more extensive list of search terms, consult the thesaurus prepared by AWIC.
Keep in mind that this database does not cover all available literature on analgesia and anesthesia; if you do not find useful results with this database, consider searching other databases or contacting your research librarian or AWIC for additional help.