We've seen them before–hospitalized equine patients made anxious, even fractious, by the drawing of multiple blood samples via direct venipuncture.

But here's good news for veterinarians and nursing staff who dislike using the method on resistant patients. According to a recent study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, blood drawn with an indwelling intravenous catheter (IVC) yielded no statistically significant or clinically relevant differences compared to samples taken by direct venipuncture.

An IVC allows for less stressful sampling, but because the route is generally used to administer medications and fluid therapy, many clinicians fear that blood taken via IVC would be diluted or altered, noted the researchers. The study, E-published Aug. 24 by the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, found that blood samples obtained by IVC have clinically equivalent values to those taken by direct venipuncture in commonly performed analyses.

"This study gave us some valuable information for something we do every day," said Maeva Louis May, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, a lecturer in internal and sports medicine at New Bolton and lead author on the study. "Hospitalization is a stressful time for the animal, and there are times we actually end up getting blood up to four times per day. It's trying for the animal and the nurses, and we often see horses become more difficult to handle. One thing we don't want to compromise is the human-animal bond