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. 
Bozzay, J. D., Walker, P. F., Atwood, R. E. et al. 2023. Development, refinement, and characterization of a nonhuman primate critical care environment. PLOS ONE 18(3), e0281548.

Systemic inflammatory response remains a poorly understood cause of morbidity and mortality after traumatic injury. Recent nonhuman primate (NHP) trauma models have been used to characterize the systemic response to trauma, but none have incorporated...

Herlofson, E. A. G., Tavola, F., Engdahl, K. S. et al. 2023. Evaluation of primary wound healing and potential complications after perioperative infiltration with lidocaine without adrenaline in surgical incisions in dogs and cats. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 21.

Pre-emptive local analgesia with the use of lidocaine is practised increasingly in veterinary medicine as part of applied multimodal analgesia, despite its controversial impact on wound healing. The purpose of this prospective, randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled...

Peruga, M., Kawala, B., Sarul, M. et al. 2023. Are currently selected laboratory animals useful in the research of how female hormones influence orthodontic biomechanics? Animals 13(4), 629.

Animal testing was and remains the only method of introducing a certain treatment and medical procedure on humans. On the other hand, animals have their rights resulting from applicable legal acts, including Directive 2010/63/EU and...

Štrbenc, M., Kuhar, U., Lainšček, D. et al. 2023. Rehoming and other refinements and replacement in procedures using golden hamsters in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research. Animals 13(16), 2616.

Effective vaccines are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty golden hamsters were inoculated with two promising vaccine candidates and eighteen animals were used in pilot trials with viral challenge. ELISA assays were performed to...

Trujanovic, R., Rohrbach, H. 2023. Ultrasound-guided block of the sciatic and the femoral nerves in rabbits—A descriptive anatomical study. Animals 13(14), 2393.

The rabbit is a popular animal model for human biomechanical research involving surgery on the hind limb. Mortality is higher in rabbits when undergoing general anesthesia compared to dogs and cats. Moreover, due to their...

Vullo, C., Falcone, A., Marino, G. et al. 2023. Comparison between the effects of epidural lidocaine, tramadol, and lidocaine–tramadol on postoperative pain in cats undergoing elective orchiectomy. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 33.

In veterinary clinical practice, orchiectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures for cats and is performed mainly in young animals. The purpose of this study was to compare three different epidural (EP) analgesic...

Benato, L., Murrell, J., Rooney, N. 2023. Determining a cut-off point for intervention analgesia in rabbits using the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale. Veterinary Record 193(5), e2995.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the threshold of the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS) indicating the need for intervention analgesia. Methods: Fourteen members of veterinary staff were recruited to rate rabbits...

Miller, A. L., Clarkson, J. M., Quigley, C. et al. 2022. Evaluating pain and analgesia effectiveness following routine castration in rabbits using behavior and facial expressions. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 782486.

Prevention of pain in rabbits is a priority for both welfare and validity of scientific data. We aimed to determine if the rabbit grimace scale (RbtGS) could be used as a viable, rapid assessment tool...

Paterson, E. A., Turner, P. V. 2022. Challenges with assessing and treating pain in research primates: A focused survey and literature review. Animals 12(17), 2304.

Research primates may undergo surgical procedures making effective pain management essential to ensure good animal welfare and unbiased scientific data. Adequate pain mitigation is dependent on whether veterinarians, technicians, researchers, and caregivers can recognize and...

Saraiva, J. L., Rachinas-Lopes, P., Arechavala-Lopez, P. 2022. Finding the “golden stocking density”: A balance between fish welfare and farmers’ perspectives. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 930221.

The effects of stocking density on fish welfare are complex and involve many interacting parameters. This complex relationship between fish welfare, stocking density and influencing factors make it challenging to define a specific optimal (“golden”)...

Casey, K. M., Gore, F., Vilches-Moure, J. G. et al. 2021. Management of morbidity and mortality in a New Zealand white rabbit model of steroidinduced osteonecrosis of the femoral head. Comparative Medicine 71(1), 86-98.

Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (SONFH) is a condition documented in humans and animals exposed to chronic steroid administration. The rabbit has become a preferred animal model for investigating the pathogenesis and treatment of...

Archibald, W., Glynn, C. 2021. Refining cages for social housing of non-human primates on ADME studies. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(2), 172-174.

The assessment and understanding of Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Elimination (ADME) for new pharmaceuticals is required in regulatory submissions. Typically, ADME studies are conducted using metabolism cages designed for the single housing of animals to...

da Silva Medeiros Elidio, H., Coelho, J. W. R., Cavalcanti Pereira da Silva, L. C. et al. 2021. Housing density and aggression in Syrian hamsters. JAALAS 60(5), 506-509.

The Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is a solitary and naturally territorial animal, with female hamsters being more aggressive than males. This behavior makes handling difficult because they are usually housed in groups, which can lead...

Guerrero-Martin, S. M., Rubin, L. H., McGee, K. M. et al. 2021. Psychosocial stress alters the immune response and results in higher viral load during acute simian immunodeficiency virus infection in a pigtailed macaque model of human immunodeficiency virus. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 224(12), 2113–2121.

Although social distancing is a key public health response during viral pandemics, psychosocial stressors, such as social isolation, have been implicated in adverse health outcomes in general [1] and in the context of infectious disease...

Bertho, J.-M., Ancelet, S., Denais-Laliève, D. et al. 2020. Humane endpoints in severe irradiation experiments using non-human primates: A retrospective analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 46(1).

A retrospective statistical study has been performed in order to identify the biological, clinical and behavioural variables that could potentially predict the survival status of irradiated non-human primates (NHP) and to refine the future use...

Hedenqvist, P., Trbakovic, A., Mellgren, T. et al. 2020. The effect of housing environment on bone healing in a critical radius defect in New Zealand white rabbits. PLOS ONE 15(5), e0233530.

In animal studies on bone healing, the effect of housing space and physical activity are seldom taken into account. Bone formation was evaluated in New Zealand White rabbits (mean ± SEM BW: 3.9 ± 0.11...

Thoré, E. S. J., Brendonck, L., Pinceel, T. 2020. Conspecific density and environmental complexity impact behaviour of turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri). Fish Biology 97(5), 1448–1461.

Fish models are essential for research in many biological and medical disciplines. With a typical lifespan of only 6 months, the turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) was recently established as a time- and cost-efficient model to...

Andrews, D. D., Fajt, V. R., Baker, K. C. et al. 2020. A comparison of buprenorphine, sustained release buprenorphine, and high concentration buprenorphine in male New Zealand white rabbits. JAALAS 59(5), 546-556.

Pain management in rabbits can be difficult because they are adept at hiding pain and can be stressed by handling and restraint for injection. The use of opioid analgesics with prolonged durations of activity could...

Heyworth, C. 2019. Inventive enrichment to facilitate weight gain in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) during invasive studies. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 7(4) (December), 38-41.

To provide the highest standard of care to marmosets during invasive surgical studies, studies that often lead to weight loss, it is paramount to call upon inherent species-specific enrichment tactics to mitigate weight loss. Weight...

Warwick, C., Arena, P., Lindley, S. et al. 2013. Assessing reptile welfare using behavioural criteria. In Practice 35(3), 123-131.

While clinical reptile medicine as a science is in its ascendancy among veterinary surgeons and other interested groups, familiarity with the often related issue of reptilian behavioural and psychological health appears less common. Behavioural change...

Wolfensohn, S., Hawkins, P., Lilley, E. et al. 2013. Reducing suffering in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 67(3), 169-176.

This report is based on discussions and submissions from an expert working group consisting of veterinarians, animal care staff and scientists with expert knowledge relevant to the field. It aims to facilitate the implementation of...