Therapeutic contraindications in exotic pets

Therapeutic drugs legally available for human use have gone through exhaustive pharacodynamic testing and clinical drug trials. Far fewer drugs have been evaluated for common companion animals such as dogs and cats, and practically none have been rigorously evaluated for the exotic patient. Much of our information on dosing, efficacy, and adverse reactions is anecdotal or based on extrapolation from other species. Very little information exists on drug-to-drug interaction in vivo. However, a few recognized therapeutic contraindications exist, and many have been well documented in the field of laboratory medicine. A common example is corticosteroid usage in laboratory rabbits. The exotic animal practitioner needs to be fully aware of these limitations and implications and be willing to perform a thorough literature search for already established information when contemplating the use of a novel drug in exotic animal species.