The Paw Project - Washington 26 mins · Edited · Is declawing with a laser better? The short answer is, no. We noticed that one local veterinary practice is very proud of their CO2 laser, which they tell us allows them to do surgery with minimal bleeding, decreased swelling, and little to no pain. They go on to say that “if you are considering declawing your cat, this is the most humane option available in veterinary medicine!” How disappointing! Let’s be very clear here: declawing a cat is never humane, because it is an unnecessary amputation that offers no benefits to the patient, but causes her significant pain and complications. Beyond that though, used for declawing, lasers are anything but the panacea their manufacturers would want us to believe. CO2 lasers can be of great use in soft tissue surgery, due to the way the laser beam can seal small blood vessel and nerve endings. But lasers do not make declawing any better. Quite to the contrary, studies have shown they can make it worse. Used for soft tissue surgery, the laser penetration is shallow, with little associated thermal damage. But when it is used for amputation of the end bones of a cat’s paw (declawing) the results can be markedly different, and laser declawing can result in fourth-degree burns (burning of the bone). Do you think that sounds humane? We don’t! What about the benefits they tout? “Minimal bleeding, decreased swelling, and little to no pain” certainly sound good. However, the science says that, for declaw surgery, these benefits are simply not seen. A study seen in the September 1, 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Association reported that lasers offered NO BENEFIT over the more conventional methods of declawing. (Differences in discomfort and complications between groups treated via scalpel versus CO2 laser were not clinically relevant. -- Mison, et al.) And, in fact, the truth is worse even than that. Levy, et al. (1999), found that complications (bleeding, limping, swelling, infection) were generally WORSE in the first two days after surgery for those cats declawed using a laser as compared to those declawed with blades. So, if anyone tries to convince you that laser declaw is a good choice, please politely explain to them that they are mistaken. There are resources you can point them to on the Paw Project web site to help (Question 12 addresses laser declaw, and tendonectomy):
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 03:12:01 +0000
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