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. 

An uncontrolled reproduction of animals in human hands should be avoided. To meet this goal, animals are widely castrated, i.e., the gonads are completely removed. Since the gonads are the most important source of sex...

3D cell culture models of cancer are currently being developed to recapitulate in vivo physiological conditions and to assess therapeutic responses. However, most models failed to incorporate the biochemical and biophysical stimuli from fluid flow...

Para-aminopropiophenone (PAPP) is a potent methaemoglobin (MetHb) forming agent used for the lethal control of exotic carnivores and mustelids. To assess the sensitivity of Australian wildlife to PAPP we developed an in vivo assay that...

Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness...

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...

To accurately assess pain and support broadly-based analgesic protocols to mitigate swine pain, it is imperative to develop and validate a species-specific pain scale. The objective of this study was to investigate the clinical validity...

Mobile zoos are events in which non-domesticated (exotic) and domesticated species are transported to venues such as schools, hospitals, parties, and community centres, for the purposes of education, entertainment, or social and therapeutic assistance. We...

Visitors are a prominent feature in the lives of zoo animals, and their presence can cause a range of impacts on zoo animals (typically classed as positive, negative or neutral impacts), commonly referred to as...

Background Tail inspection in the abattoir is a tool to help determine the welfare status of pigs. However, methodologies vary widely. Moreover, meat inspection is moving from palpation and incision towards visual-only (VIS) examination. This...

Human activities negatively impact the welfare of wild vertebrates in many different contexts globally, and countless individual animals are affected. Growing concern for wild animal welfare, especially in relation to conservation, is evident. While research...

Patients with cirrhosis present multiple physiological and immunological alterations that play a very important role in the development of clinically relevant secondary complications to the disease. Experimentation in animal models is essential to understand the...

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...

A negative human-animal relationship (HAR) from the perspective of the animal is a limiting factor affecting farm animal welfare, as well as farm animal productivity. Research in farm animals has elucidated sequential relationships between stockperson...

Recent years have witnessed major advances in the ability of computerized systems to track the positions of animals as they move through large and unconstrained environments. These systems have so far been a great boon...

In the U.S. millions of commercially raised piglets are routinely tail docked. Human and veterinary medical patients experienced reduced inflammation, healing time and post-procedural pain using a CO2 surgical laser compared to standard surgical instruments...

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

The Integrative Model of Human-Animal Interactions (IMHAI) described herewith provides a conceptual framework for the study of interspecies interactions and aims to model the primary emotional processes involved in human-animal interactions. This model was developed...

The OECD test guidelines for animal experiments play an important role in evaluating the chemical hazards. Animal tests performed using OECD guidelines, especially when the good laboratory practice (GLP) principle is applied, reduce the duplication...

Although applied in some countries, efficacy of local anesthetics based on procaine to mitigate acute responses to piglet castration remains questioned. This paper presents results from a factorial study examining the effects of two methods...

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

Refinement is one of the ethical pillars of the use of animals in research. Ultrasonography is currently used in human medicine as a surgical tool for guided biopsies and this idea can be applied to...

To evaluate pain responses to intratesticular and subscrotal injection of three local anaesthetics and their efficacy during castration a randomized controlled study was conducted. In groups of 20 piglets, procaine (2%), lidocaine (2%), or mepivacaine...

Aortic insufficiency caused by paravalvular leakage (PVL) is one of the most feared complications following transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI) in patients. Domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) are a popular large animal model to study...

Since January 2019, surgical castration of male piglets must be performed using local anaesthesia, if farmers deliver pigs to the primary exporting slaughterhouses according to the “Danish quality scheme”; a voluntary initiative taken by the...