What in-house vaccine titering could mean for practice

A niche preventive care tool is getting a more mainstream look in companion animal medicine: in-house vaccine titering. dvm360 highlighted the topic in a December 2, 2025 Vet Blast Podcast episode on “what veterinary professionals need to know about in-house vaccine titering,” framing point-of-care serology as a way to support more personalized vaccination decisions in general practice. (dvm360.com)

The idea isn’t new, but the practice setting may be changing. For years, vaccine titers have been discussed mainly in referral, shelter, or vaccine-hesitant contexts, often through outside laboratories. More recent guidance from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association says commercial in-practice kits are now available to detect antibodies against canine distemper virus, canine parvovirus, and canine adenovirus in dogs, and feline panleukopenia virus in cats, with some validated for practice and shelter use and capable of producing results within 20 to 30 minutes. WSAVA positions these tests as an aid to vaccination-related decision-making, not as a replacement for vaccination programs overall. (wsava.org)

That distinction matters. AAHA’s 2022 canine vaccination guidance says serology has a role, but routine titer testing to decide whether to revaccinate at already recommended intervals is “not usually advised,” except in selected situations such as prior adverse vaccine responses, suspected vaccine-related autoimmune disease, or when pet parents are resistant or hesitant about boosters. The same guidance also notes an important technical limitation: virus neutralization and hemagglutination inhibition remain the strongest correlates of protection, while ELISA-based methods can detect antibodies that are not always directly involved in protection, depending on antigen design. (aaha.org)

At the same time, the evidence supporting point-of-care testing has been growing. WSAVA’s 2024 guideline cites validated in-practice assays and references a 2022 JAVMA study finding that a point-of-care dot blot ELISA for canine adenovirus, parvovirus, and distemper was diagnostically accurate. A newer 2025 study comparing three canine point-of-care tests with virus neutralization concluded that antibody titer measurements can help reduce unnecessary vaccination and may be especially useful in young dogs, dogs with chronic illness, and dogs with a history of adverse vaccine responses, while also underscoring that test performance varies by pathogen and platform. (wsava.org)

For cats, the picture is more selective. The 2020 AAHA/AAFP feline vaccination guidelines emphasize individualized risk assessment, and AAFP FAQ materials note that most cats with a positive titer for feline panleukopenia are immune. But feline respiratory core vaccines are different from panleukopenia, and serology is less straightforward as a real-world protection marker there. That means practices considering in-house titering for cats will likely find the clearest use case in FPV-related decision-making rather than broad substitution for feline core vaccine planning. (aaha.org)

Industry and expert commentary around titering tends to converge on one point: this is a tool for smarter case selection, not a universal workaround. The dvm360 framing emphasizes myth-busting and personalization, while guideline groups stress that all dogs and cats should still receive core vaccines as part of preventive care. In other words, positive titers can help confirm protection in some contexts, but negative or equivocal results, legal requirements, exposure risk, age, and medical history still shape the final recommendation. Rabies is the clearest boundary line, because U.S. rabies policy is governed by law and public health rules rather than in-clinic antibody screening. (dvm360.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, in-house titering could become a useful communication and medical decision tool in the exam room. It may help reduce friction with vaccine-hesitant pet parents, support care plans for patients with prior reactions or comorbidities, and identify younger animals that may not have mounted expected protection after vaccination. But adopting it well will require guardrails: teams need to know which diseases have meaningful serologic correlates of protection, which assays are validated, when outside-lab confirmation is warranted, and how to explain that a titer is not the same thing as a legal vaccine certificate. (mdpi.com)

What to watch: The next phase will likely center on workflow and standardization, including which patients get tested, how practices price and code the service, whether more feline applications are validated, and how strongly future guidelines embrace point-of-care serology as part of routine preventive care rather than a niche option for selected cases. (wsava.org)