Pre-anaesthetic blood tests are performed before your pet is given anaesthesia. This allows us to ensure that your pet is healthy enough to safely be anaesthetised and minimises the innate risk of anaesthesia.

The function of these tests is to reduce the ‘unknown’ when doing something as important as anaesthetising your pet. This reduces the anxiety for you in having to leave your pet as well as giving us better control of your pet’s wellbeing. When assessing your pet’s safety while discussing anaesthesia, we consider their heart and lung function, kidney function and liver function to be of paramount importance.

Heart and lung function can be assessed through our examination of your pet and by the extensive monitoring equipment that we use when your pet undergoes a procedure. However, kidney and liver function can only be assessed adequately via blood testing. This is why we suggest pre-anaesthetic blood testing for all pets undergoing any procedure.

Many pets, both young and old, have had their procedures modified or delayed to ensure safety because of information gained by pre-anaesthetic blood tests. Had tests not been performed, their recovery from anaesthesia would have been jeopardised.

When you bring your pet into the hospital, you will be asked whether you would like your pet to have pre-anaesthetic blood tests. There is an extra cost involved. Please feel free to ask any questions at any time regarding pre-anaesthetic blood tests.