Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Frohlich, J. R., Alarcón, C. N., Toarmino, C. R. et al. 2018. Comparison of serial blood collection by facial vein and retrobulbar methods in C57BL/6 mice. JAALAS 57(4), 382-391.

Many biomedical research protocols for mouse models involve serial blood collection and analysis. Two common techniques for serial blood collection in this species are the retrobulbar (RB, also called retroorbital) and facial vein (FV) methods...

Mei, J., Riedel, N., Grittner, U. et al. 2018. Body temperature measurement in mice during acute illness: Implantable temperature transponder versus surface infrared thermometry. Scientific Reports 8, 3526.

Body temperature is a valuable parameter in determining the wellbeing of laboratory animals. However, using body temperature to refine humane endpoints during acute illness generally lacks comprehensiveness and exposes to inter-observer bias. Here we compared...

Rodrigues, M. V., de Castro, S. O., de Albuquerque, C. Z. 2017. The gingival vein as a minimally traumatic site for multiple blood sampling in guinea pigs and hamsters. PLOS ONE 12(5), e0177967.

Laboratory animals are still necessary in scientific investigation and vaccine testing, but while novel methodological approaches are not available for their replacement, the search for new, humane, easy, and painless methods is necessary to diminish...

Gaskill, B. N., Stottler, A. M., Garner, J. P. et al. 2017. The effect of early life experience, environment, and genetic factors on spontaneous home-cage aggression-related wounding in male C57BL/6 mice. Lab Animal 46(4), 176-184.

Aggression is a major welfare issue in mice, particularly when mice unfamiliar to each other are first placed in cages, as happens on receipt from a vendor, and following cage cleaning. Injuries from aggression are...

Moore, E. S., Cleland, T. A., Williams, W. O. et al. 2017. Comparing phlebotomy by tail tip amputation, facial vein puncture, and tail vein incision in C57BL/6 mice by using physiologic and behavioral metrics of pain and distress. JAALAS 56(3), 307-317.

Tail tip amputation with minimal restraint is not widely used for mouse phlebotomy. In part, this infrequency may reflect policies influenced by tail tip amputation procedures for genotyping, which involve greater handling and tissue removal...

Hawkins, P., McNeilly, A., Watson, J. et al. 2017. Report of the 2016 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 77-86.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 1 November 2016 at the University of Edinburgh and was attended by 70 delegates. Presentation topics included refinements in blood sampling rodents...

Lopes, V. M., Sampaio, E., Roumbedakis, K. et al. 2017. Cephalopod biology and care, a COST FA1301 (CephsInAction) training school: Anaesthesia and scientific procedures. Invertebrate Neuroscience 17, 8.

Cephalopods are the sole invertebrates included in the list of regulated species following the Directive 2010/63/EU. According to the Directive, achieving competence through adequate training is a requisite for people having a role in the...

Grant, C., Marks, L., Prior, H. 2017. Provision of food and water in rodent whole body plethysmography safety pharmacology respiratory studies – Impact on animal welfare and data quality. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 88(Part 1), 79-84.

Introduction: We evaluated the feasibility of providing food and water to rodents during whole body plethysmography (WBP) studies as a welfare improvement to standard conditions. Methods: Male Han Wistar rats or CD1 mice (n=8) were...

Wickremsinhe, E. R., Perkins, E. J. 2015. Using dried blood spot sampling to improve data quality and reduce animal use in mouse pharmacokinetic studies. JAALAS. 54(2), 139-144.

Traditional pharmacokinetic analysis in nonclinical studies is based on the concentration of a test compound in plasma and requires approximately 100 to 200 μL blood collected per time point. However, the total blood volume of...

Caron, A., Lelong, C., Pascual, M. H. et al. 2015. Miniaturized blood sampling techniques to benefit reduction in mice and refinement in nonhuman primates: Application to bioanalysis in toxicity studies with antibody-drug conjugates. JAALAS 54(2), 145-152.

Minimizing the number of animals in regulatory toxicity studies while achieving study objectives to support the development of future medicines contributes to good scientific and ethical practices. Recent advances in technology have enabled the development...

Brown, C. 2015. Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Animal Cognition 18(1), 1–17.

Fish are one of the most highly utilised vertebrate taxa by humans; they are harvested from wild stocks as part of global fishing industries, grown under intensive aquaculture conditions, are the most common pet and...

Allaire. A. C., Boule, S. 2014. Refining blood collection techniques to improve animal welfare and sample quality. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 605-606. (Abstract #P212).

An effort to refine rodent blood collection techniques resulted in an examination of alternative methodologies to improve animal welfare and sample quality. Disease model or repeated sample collection resulted in inadequate sample volume, occasional hemolysis...

Bratcher, N. A., Ebert, P. A., Buck, W. et al. 2014. Refinement and efficiency through serial microsampling: Cost:benefit analysis. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 580. (Abstract #P121).

Advances in bioanalytic methods allow for accurate plasma drug level measurement in small sample volumes. Decreased sample volumes enable serial blood sample collection from one rodent, rather than terminal or sparse sampling from multiple rodents...

Tupper, T., Manning, H., Turner, D. et al. 2014. An innovative restraint device for the placement of intravenous tail vein catheters in anesthetized mice. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 584. (Abstract #P136).

Consistently accurate intravenous tail vein administration of radiopharmaceuticals in anesthetized mice is a critical component of successful PET/CT imaging in the preclinical setting. Injectable anesthetics are often not suitable for PET imaging and commercially available...

Torres, M. 2014. Refining methods for mouse hepatic biopsy. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 557-558 (Abstract #P32).

The mouse is a commonly used species in liver research such as oncology, toxicology, and disease models. The ability to collect specimens of liver is vital to such research. Such studies require either a major...

Teilmann, A. C., Madsen, A. N., Holst, B. et al. 2014. Impact of blood sampling procedures on the welfare of laboratory mice. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 600-601. (Abstract #P195).

A previous study showed that blood sampling either automatically, through a catheter, or by puncture of the tail vein is less stressful than facial vein phlebotomy in mice. We decided to investigate how facial vein...

Voigt, C. C., Klockner, P., Touma, C. et al. 2013. Hormonal stress response of laboratory mice to conventional and minimally invasive bleeding techniques. Animal Welfare 22(4), 449-455.

Conventional bleeding of small laboratory animals is often associated with stress and injuries that can cause haematomas, inflammation and ultimately the death of animals under investigation. Here, we used faecal glucocorticoid metabolites as an indicator...

Sadler, A. M., Bailey, S. J. 2013. Validation of a refined technique for taking repeated blood samples from juvenile and adult mice. Laboratory Animals 47(4), 316-319.

Repeated blood sampling from laboratory animals is desirable in certain experimental designs and also for reducing the number of animals used in research. Biochemical methods for analysing blood samples require only small blood volumes to...

Hrapkiewicz, K., Colby, L. A., Denison, P. 2013. Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction (4th Ed). Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, IA.

Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction, Fourth Edition offers a user-friendly guide to the unique anatomy and physiology, care, common diseases, and treatment of small mammals and nonhuman primates. Carefully designed for ease of use...

Zahorsky-Reeves, J. 2011. The choice of bedding substrate, route of blood collection, and method of glucose determination all affect fasting blood glucose levels in C57BL/6 mice. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 738 (Abstract #PS80).

This study compared 4 bedding substrates (corncob, paper, hardwood chip, and wire-bottomed cage inserts) and 2 routes of blood collection (lateral tail vein and retroorbital sinus) in 6 male C57BL/6NCrl mice. Mice were maintained with...

Aasland, K. E., Skjerve, E., Smith, A. J. 2010. Quality of blood samples from the saphenous vein compared with the tail vein during multiple blood sampling of mice. Laboratory Animals 44(1), 25-29.

A large number of methods for obtaining blood from mice have been published. In our facility, saphenous venepuncture is considered the method of choice for bleeding mice and is believed to have a number of...

Fernandez, I., Pena, A., Del Teso, N. et al. 2010. Clinical biochemistry parameters in C57BL/6J mice after blood collection from the submandibular vein and retroorbital plexus. JAALAS 49(2), 202-206.

Collection of blood from the submandibular vein allows simple and rapid processing of many animals without anesthesia and facilitates rapid recovery with no signs of pain and discomfort in the mice. Here we compared the...

Howard, B., Nevalainen, T., Perretta, G. (ed). 2010. The COST Manual of Laboratory Animal Care and Use: Refinement, Reduction, and Research (1st Ed). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

COST Action B-24 established four working groups to research and discuss issues relevant to laboratory animal science. These included the housing of animals, environmental needs, refinement of procedures, genetically modified animals, and cost-benefit analysis. Based...

Bayne, K. 2010. Enrichment and behavioral management programs around the world. Enrichment Record 4, 4-7.

To do justice to the diverse approaches to enrichment and behavioral management around the world would entail a discussion beyond the limits of this publication. Therefore, guidelines and regulations in a representative sample of countries...

Taylor K. 2010. Reporting the implementation of the three Rs in European primate and mouse research papers: Are we making progress? Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 38(6), 495-517.

It is now more than 20 years since both Council of Europe Convention ETS123 and EU Directive 86/609/EEC were introduced, to promote the implementation of the Three Rs in animal experimentation and to provide guidance...