Medium-sized animals such as miniature pigs are considered to be important for education and training in medical schools to
master the skills required in surgical treatment. Much still remains to be done to establish total management for animal experiments
using pigs. Improvement of the effective utilization of pigs is also required from the economical and ethical points of view.
We have been providing a support system at a facility for experimental animals in a medical school for 3 years, and herein
we introduce our personal experiments as an instructional lecture. Before starting surgical training using live pigs, sufficient
education concerning animal ethics and dry laboratory training was completed. Four kinds of miniature pigs have been used
as experimental animals; porcine rearing pens have been improved and a postoperative care system has been implemented. Moreover,
staff at the center offer a preoperative service of anesthesia for surgical education, training, and research. Chronic experiments
have increased to represent 35% and 48% of experiments using pigs in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Experimental pigs have undergone
secondary use after being killed to reduce the number of animals used in experiments. Sharing and reuse have allowed effective
use of miniature pig tissues and cells for research, and have reduced the number of animals used. We recommend that researchers
consider use of our total systems because they can improve the quality of medical education and research and facilitate effective
use of tissues and cells by sharing and reuse among different departments.
Key words Animal experiment - Miniature pig - Reuse - Sharing - Support system