PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - DASA SEVELJEVIC-JARAN AU - MAJA ANTOLIC AU - ANJA OGNJENOVIC AU - OTTO KALLIOKOSKI AU - KLAS S.P. ABELSON AU - JANN HAU TI - Effects of Multimodal Therapy, Blinding, and Multi-laboratory Protocol Conduct on the Robustness of the Rat Model of Adjuvant Induced Arthritis AID - 10.21873/invivo.13060 DP - 2023 Jan 01 TA - In Vivo PG - 115--123 VI - 37 IP - 1 4099 - http://iv.iiarjournals.org/content/37/1/115.short 4100 - http://iv.iiarjournals.org/content/37/1/115.full SO - In Vivo2023 Jan 01; 37 AB - Background/Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of multimodal therapy comprising buprenorphine (BUP) and indomethacin (IND) on key translational parameters in the rat adjuvant induced arthritis (AIA) model. Furthermore, we investigated the difference between visual assessment scores and histology scores generated by blinded and non-blinded assessors and the robustness and generalizability of results by conducting a multi-laboratory study. Materials and Methods: The experiment was terminated on day 26 after 11 days (days 15-25) of voluntarily ingested buprenorphine and 7 days of gavage delivered indomethacin treatment (days 19-25). The treatment effects were assessed on the last day of the study, relying on body weight assessment, serum concentrations of α1- acid glycoprotein, and assessment of affected hind paws swelling, in-life and post mortem. Results: Across two laboratories, the combined analgesic treatments had minimal effects on the measured model parameters indicating that multimodal treatment did not affect the translatability of the model. We found an improvement in clinical scores (a negative change in scores) in nearly all medicated animals when scored informed, whereas it was essentially 50:50 for the blinded scorings and no difference between the blinded and informed histological scoring. Conclusion: The present results support the use of more effective analgesic treatment regimens and the good practice recommendations advocating blinding as a mandatory practice in conduct of preclinical in vivo efficacy studies. In spite of minor differences between results obtained at the two sites, there was good agreement between them indicating robustness of the AIA model.