Although laboratory animals experience pain as a necessary component of the objectives of experimental protocols, the level of pain should be minimized through use of an adequate analgesic regimen. The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug meloxicam may be beneficial in alleviating post-operative pain in mice, although no regimen has been demonstrated as universally efficacious owing to differences in experimental protocols, strain, sex, and incomplete descriptions of methodology in the literature. The aim of this systematic literature review was to identify potential applications of meloxicam for pain management in experimental mice and to evaluate the general quality of study design. Searches of MEDLINE, Scopus and CAB Direct databases elicited 94 articles published between January 2000 and April 2020 that focused on the analgesic efficacy of meloxicam in the management of momentary or persistent pain in mice. The extracted data showed that most articles were deficient in descriptions of housing, husbandry, group size calculation and humane endpoint criteria, while few described adverse effects of the drug. A wide range of dosages of meloxicam was identified with analgesic efficiencies that varied considerably according to the different models or procedures studied. It was impossible to correlate the extracted data into a single meta-analysis because of the differences in experimental protocols and strains employed, the low representation of female mice in the studies, and incomplete descriptions of the methodology applied. We conclude that meloxicam has potential application for pain management in mice but that the dosage must be adjusted carefully according to the experimental procedures. Moreover, authors must take more care in designing their studies and in describing the methodology employed.

尽管实验动物经历疼痛是实验方案目标的必要组成部分，但应通过使用适当的镇痛方案将疼痛程度降至最低。非甾体抗炎药美洛昔康可能有助于减轻小鼠术后疼痛，尽管由于实验方案、菌株、性别和文献中方法描述不完整，没有一种方案被证明是普遍有效的。本系统文献综述的目的是确定美洛昔康在实验小鼠疼痛管理中的潜在应用，并评估研究设计的总体质量。搜索MEDLINE，Scopus 和 CAB Direct 数据库在 2000 年 1 月至 2020 年 4 月期间发表了 94 篇文章，重点关注美洛昔康在治疗小鼠瞬时或持续性疼痛中的镇痛效果。提取的数据显示，大多数文章缺乏对住房、畜牧业、群体规模计算和人道终点标准的描述，而很少描述药物的不良反应。根据所研究的不同模型或程序，确定了各种剂量的美洛昔康镇痛效率差异很大。由于实验方案和所用菌株的差异、研究中雌性小鼠的代表性低以及所用方法的描述不完整，不可能将提取的数据关联到单一的荟萃分析中。我们得出结论，美洛昔康在小鼠疼痛管理方面具有潜在应用，但必须根据实验程序仔细调整剂量。此外，作者在设计研究和描述所采用的方法时必须更加小心。