No poking. No needles. Precise, pure blood samples. Proven long-term patency. Group housing. 3Rs-friendly.
Every time you pick up an animal, stress levels rise. Every time you poke an animal, it gets worse. There is a better way! Hands off rodent blood sampling allows you to take precise, low stress blood samples all without using a needle. Take your samples from outside the cage using a swivel and tether. For even faster collection, use a capillary tube with injector. Hands free sampling - better for the animal, and better for you.
At the American College of Toxicology’s 2019 meeting, Charles River Laboratories presented a poster on the extraordinary patency they achieved during a large infusion toxicology study in rats: flushing only every other week and locking with heparinized saline, CRL kept 94% of the rats’ femoral vein catheters patent for both sampling and infusion throughout the five-month study.
A separate study in mice found that the use of transcutaneous buttons kept catheters patent for up to five times longer than standard externalized catheters.
See below for additional publications.
For the first time, rodents with externalized catheters can be group housed. Thanks to protective aluminum caps, you no longer have to trade off this basic animal welfare requirement with the benefits of sampling and infusing through a catheter.
Ferring | Fewer complications compared to harnesses |
AstraZeneca | Fewer complications compared to harnesses |
Charles River | 94% bi-directional patency after 151 days |
Charles River | 100% patency in 28-day continuous infusion study |
Charles River | Patency 5x longer than externalized catheters |
Charles River | 84% patency for bolus dosing after 9 weeks |
Charles River | Use in reproduction studies |
Charles River | Comparison of patency with and without maintenance |
Ellegaard | Implantation in minipigs |
Frontage | Blood sampling from minipigs |
US Army | Blood sampling from ferrets |