The Equine Veterinary Journal has published BEVA's new primary care clinical guidelines on analgesia.

The guidelines, which have produced by a panel of clinicians and analgesia researchers, summarise the current evidence and offer expert opinion and best practice recommendations for the use of analgesics for common scenarios.

Recommendations include:

• Horses undergoing routine castration should receive intratesticular local anaesthesia irrespective of methods adopted and horses should receive NSAIDs prior to surgery. Butorphanol and buprenorphine should not be considered appropriate as sole analgesics for such procedures and analgesia should be continued for three days following castration.
• For hoof pain/laminitis phenylbutazone provided superior analgesia to meloxicam and firocoxib but enhanced efficacy has not been demonstrated for joint pain.
• In horses with colic, flunixin and firocoxib are considered to provide more effective analgesia than meloxicam or phenylbutazone.
• A single properly validated composite pain score for horses should be developed, to allow accurate comparisons between medications in a robust manner. 

Professor Celia Marr, Editor of the EVJ said: "The BEVA primary care clinical guidelines provide up-to-date clarity on the fundamental aspects of equine pain management for the clinician and are essential reading for all those in first opinion ambulatory roles."

The guidelines are the first in a series being produced for primary care vets by BEVA. They can be downloaded here: https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evj.13198

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