Promoting Animal Welfare with Implanted Telemetry

As part of the advanced surgical services offered by Inotiv, telemetry represents an important part of a thoughtful, experimental design. Learn how telemetered data can promote animal welfare, deliver a wide variety of data points, and even support analytical capabilities.

The advantages of implanted telemetry 

“Telemetry is valuable for our research clients that need to collect multiple data points from each animal,” said Andris Lelkes, North America Surgery Program Manager at Inotiv. 

“Depending on the implant, researchers can get real-time blood pressure, heart rate, ECG, body temperature, activity, respiratory data, glucose levels, and even neurological data. We can also collect left ventricular pressure, which involves placing a pressure catheter in the heart.” 

Promoting animal welfare 

Beyond the convenience of collecting multiple data points, animal welfare represents a key advantage of implanted telemetry. 

“Researchers can collect physiological measurements without having to remove the animals from their housing,” said Andris. “They can also pair house animals, which is great for animal welfare.”

“When they need to gather data, they don’t have to disturb them or cause stress,” he added. “The animals can move freely and go about their daily lives, without any kind of manual or physical restraint, or the use of anesthetics during data collection.”
  
Delivering reliable data 

With contactless data collection via implanted telemetry, researchers may also be able to gather more insights during the study period. 

“For many safety pharmacology studies, the animals don’t require a lot of handling after administering the test article. Implanted telemetry allows for researchers to stay out of the room and avoid outside interruption,” explained Andris. 

“With the hands-off approach of telemetry, researchers may be able to capture minor changes that would otherwise go unnoticed. For researchers running multiple studies a year, telemetry quickly becomes a worthwhile investment.”

Supporting analysis with a software suite 

Implanted telemetry is complemented by software platforms that store the data and provide analytical tools. 

“The software itself is very powerful,” said Andris. “By collecting blood pressure, ECG, and other activity, the software can not only analyze these data points, but also extrapolate respiratory data. This can reduce the need for more time-intensive procedures, such as putting leads on the animal’s chest or observing chest expansions.” 

Partnering with us at Inotiv 

To support researchers’ requirements for implanted telemetry and continuous data collection, Inotiv provides a range of models available for implantation services. 

“Once the rodents are implanted, we make sure that the animals recover properly for about a week before sending them to the client’s site,” said Andris. “Along with telemetry, we can also provide other surgical services at the same time, such as soft tissue procedures and vascular or non-vascular catheterizations to help advance a wide variety of research.”

If your research could benefit from efficiently collecting real-time data while improving animal welfare and analytical capabilities, please contact us to learn more about our telemetry services.