You should seek the advice of your veterinarian if your pet is ill as only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.

Pre-anaesthetic blood screening is often recommended to pet owners by their veterinarians - but are they valid ?

Prior to administering an anaesthetic veterinarians will appraise themselves of the general health status of the animal, including whether it may have a disease such as cardiac, kidney or liver problems that might affect drug choice or how the anaesthetic is administered. Often the presence of a disease will be detected from the history or physical examination of the animal, but vets will still often advise blood tests to screen the animal before the anaesthetic, espcially in high risk or elderly patients.

In a paper published in the Veterinary Record 2014 (see abstract below) which reported a review of over 700 screening tests in a practice in Derby, anaesthetic protocols were altered because of the blood results in 4% of dogs and 9% of cats. For a small number (0.9%) the blood tests detected a problem that had not been suggested by the history or examination. So, pre-anaesthetic blood screening is justified.

Introduction Pre-anaesthetic blood tests are often recommended for high risk or elderly pets. Aims Study aim was to determine the clinical impact of pre-general anaesthetic blood screening. Methods A retrospective review of canine and feline pre-anaesthetic blood test results and associated clinical records (2010-2012). Results Dogs Of 7039 test results from 474 dogs (mean age 9.64 years) 5730 (81.4%) were within reference range. In 25 (5.27%) dogs all results were within reference ranges. 102 dogs (21.51 %) did not undergo general anaesthesia and for 39 (8.23%) clinicians recorded concern about test results. Cats Of 4128 test results from 298 cats (mean age 11.65 yrs) 3238 (78.44%) were within reference ranges. 7 (2.35%) cats had all results within reference ranges. 64 cats (21.5%) did not undergo general anaesthesia and for 47 (15.77%) clinicians recorded concern about test results. Abnormal results altered anaesthesia decisions for 19 (4%) of dogs and 27 (9%) of cats. In 7 of 772 cases (0.9%) blood results flagged up unsuspected problems. Conclusions For the majority of animals pre-anaesthesia blood testing was of no clinical value. However, they altered anaesthesia protocols for 4-9% of dogs and cats respectively, and for a few animals (0.9%) the blood tests detected an unsuspected problem.

Updated September 2014