Using total intravenous anesthesia in certain cases

Marlis Rezende, DVM, PhD, MSc, DACVAA, an associate professor of anesthesia and analgesia at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences in Fort Collins, presented and co-presented more than a dozen continuing education lectures and hands-on labs during the 2025 North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) SkillShop in Orlando, Florida. In a dvm360 interview, Rezende discussed total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) and the common conditions she sees in practice that best utilize this method of pain management.

The following is a transcript of the video:

Marlis Rezende, DVM, PhD, MSc, DACVAA: In my practice, the most common cases that we would do on TIVA would be patients that have clinical signs or concerns for increased intracranial pressure. So [it would] be your patient that has a history of seizures and it's coming from an MRI or a patient with traumatic brain injury that we want to image. So those would be the most common, because it comes from the fact that TIVA tends to decrease intracranial pressure, decrease cerebral blood flow, and so by doing that, using those techniques, we have one last thing to worry about. Although, you do have to still ventilate them because you choose the hyperventilate, then some of that benefit might be lost, but that is the main cases that we do.

The other ones would be relatively short imaging, again, CTS, ultrasounds, that kind of stuff, where the dog needs to be under general anesthesia, but we expect it to be a relatively short procedure—an hour, an hour and a half—and then the recovery. They can go home, and they return to their normal behavior faster. Obviously, there'll be some influence of what you pre-med them with, right? But in general, that is, those are the 2 types of cases that we do [with TIVA] more frequently.