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CLINICAL TECHNIQUES
Leanne C. Alworth, DVM, MS, DACLAM, Column Editor
Blood collection in the guinea pig (Cavia porcellus)
Wendy R. Williams, DVM, MS & Lon V. Kendall, DVM, PhD, DACLAM
Guinea pigs are useful animal models for the study of many human diseases including diabetes mellitus and infectious diseases. Often, these studies involve collecting blood samples of considerable volume. This column describes safe techniques for restraint and blood collection from the jugular vein and cranial vena cava from alert and anesthetized guinea pigs.
npg 201 5 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Guinea pigs are commonly used in biomedical research to study the immune response to infectious disease including pulmonary, sexually transmitted, ocular, aural and gastrointestinal diseases1. Their immune response is very similar to that of humans, which makes them good candidates to study vaccines1. Blood collection is often required to evaluate clinical disease status and other immune profiles as well.
Volume for blood collection
The average circulating blood volume of a guinea pig is 75 ml per kg body weight. As a general rule, it is safe to remove up to 10% of the blood volume in a normal, healthy animal, which means that 6.57.5 ml blood per kg body weight can be collected once in 34 weeks2. This period allows the animal to recover from potential adverse effects of blood loss. The recommendation for blood collection volume and sampling intervals that will produce minimal side effects are 0.5% total blood volume daily, 5% of blood volume weekly, 7.5% of blood volume biweekly and 10% of blood volume monthly2,3.
Before blood collection begins, the clinicians should determine the desired blood volume, the appropriate site of collection and whether the guinea pig will be alert or anesthetized during the collection. Generally, small volumes of blood (<200 l) can be collected from the medial saphenous vein and dorsal pedal vein before clotting occurs. Larger volumes can be collected
from the jugular vein and the cranial vena cava. In our experience, 12 ml can be easily collected from the jugular vein in...