Top 5 Corticosteroids for Use in Emergency Settings

Kiko E. Bracker, DVM, DACVECC, Angell Animal Medical Center, Boston, Massachussetts

ArticleLast Updated March 20186 min readPeer Reviewed
black and tan terrier dog receiving emergency care

Corticosteroids are a diverse group of medications used to treat a wide array of illnesses. At lower dose ranges, they provide anti-inflammatory effects, whereas higher doses are immunosuppressive. These properties make them valuable tools in the emergency and critical care setting. Clinicians must be familiar with the appropriate indications for each drug, along with their relative potencies and adverse effects. Following are the author’s top 5 corticosteroids used in emergency settings.

1. Prednisone/Prednisolone

Prednisone is used for both anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive purposes because of its effectiveness, low cost, small tablet size, innocuous taste, and variable dose sizes.

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When used for anti-inflammatory effects, prednisone is administered at 0.5-1.0 mg/kg/day, often for only a few days to limit local or systemic inflammation.1-3 Inflammatory or traumatic disorders of emergency patients (eg, oropharyngeal trauma, oropharyngeal biopsy, decompensation secondary to laryngeal collapse or tracheal collapse) are often short in duration, and treatment with steroids for 2 to 3 days allows the initial insult or exacerbation to subside. In patients with transient inflammatory disorders, the common side effects of steroids (see Glucocorticoid Adverse Effects) are mild because of the relatively low dose and short duration of treatment.3

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