A prospective, masked, randomized, controlled superiority study comparing the incidence of corneal injury following general anesthesia in dogs with two methods of corneal protection.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare the incidence of corneal injury during general anesthesia (GA) and the immediate post-operative period in eyes protected with topical ocular lubricant alone with eyes protected with topical lubricant followed by complete eyelid closure using tape. ANIMALS STUDIED: One hundred client-owned dogs (200 eyes) undergoing GA for MRI scan. METHODS: Patients had ocular lubricant applied to both eyes upon induction of anesthesia. One eye was taped closed immediately after induction for the duration of anesthesia using Strappal&#xae; tape (BSN medical&#x2122;; treatment group), and the other eye was not taped (control group). Eyes were randomly allocated to a treatment group. Ophthalmic examination was performed before and after anesthesia; the examiner was masked to eye treatment groups. Corneal injury was defined as corneal ulceration or corneal erosion. A McNemar's test was used to compare the incidence of corneal injury between groups. A paired-samples t-test was used to compare Schirmer-1 tear test (STT-1) readings between groups. RESULTS: Sixteen eyes (8%) developed corneal erosion. No corneal ulceration occurred. There was no significant difference between incidence of corneal erosion between groups (p&#xa0;=&#xa0;.454). There was a significant decrease in STT-1 readings following GA in both groups (p&#x2009;<&#x2009;.001), with no significant difference in STT-1 between groups (p&#xa0;=&#xa0;.687). No adverse effects of taping the eye closed were observed. CONCLUSION: Taping the eyes closed during GA had no additional benefit to the lubrication protocol used in this study.