Jugular vein vascular access ports for serial pig blood sampling in high biocontainment infectious disease studies

Abstract

Effective manual or chemical restraint of pigs for blood collection is crucial when conducting infectious disease research under high biocontainment laboratory conditions; however, these methods can introduce stress and physiological disruption. We aimed to establish proof-of-concept for the use of jugular vein vascular access ports (VAPs) for repeated, conscious blood collection in both individually and group housed pigs, trained using a positive reinforcement training regime. In study 1, pigs were housed individually, with three pigs implanted with VAPs. An additional control pig was not implanted with VAPs and was anaesthetised for all blood collections. Daily assessments of behaviour wer..