• Technique
• Summary
• Resources and references
• Cardiac puncture sampling in other animals
• All blood sampling techniques in the rabbit

Please read the general principles of blood sampling page before attempting any blood sampling procedure.

Technique

Cardiac puncture is a suitable technique to obtain a single, large, good quality sample from a euthanised rabbit or a rabbit under deep terminal anaesthesia if coagulation parameters, a separate arterial or venous sample or cardiac histology are not required. It is appropriate for all strains of rabbit.

Slides and video of this technique are available from the Norwegian Reference Centre for Laboratory Animal Science and Alternatives.

A sample of 60 - 200 ml of blood can be obtained depending on the size of the rabbit and whether the heart is beating. Blood samples are taken from the heart, preferably the ventricle, which can be accessed either via the left side of the chest, through the diaphragm, from the top of the sternum or via a thoracotomy. Blood should be withdrawn slowly to prevent the heart collapsing.

Cardiac puncture should not be used if the peritoneum needs to be lavaged to harvest cells, as this technique can cause blood to escape into the peritoneal cavity.

Summary

Resources and references

• Suckow MA, Schroeder V, Douglas FA (2010).The laboratory rabbit: Page 72  CRC Press.
• Parasuraman S, Raveendran R, Kesavan R (2010). Blood sample collection in small laboratory animals. Journal of pharmacology & pharmacotherapeutics, 1(2): 87

Cardiac puncture sampling in other animals

All blood sampling techniques in the rabbit