What veterinary professionals need to know about in-house vaccine titering

On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, welcomes guests Hunter Finn, DVM, and Noga Schiller, DVM, to talk more about vaccine titering for patients

Through the episode, the trio highlights the advantages of using in-house tests, how rapid titer testing enables personalized vaccination decisions and enhances pet care, helps veterinary practices stand out in a competitive market, and more.

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Okay, so we're talking about vaccines and titering, and let's kind of back up a little bit Dr Schiller, and let's talk a little bit about how does secondary immunity work, in other words, cell mediated and humoral immunity, and how titering testing works, and how it helps us determine if the dog really needs their booster shot. Let's start there for a little bit.

Noga Schiller, DVM: Yeah, I think that's a great point to start with. So let's talk really briefly about what secondary immunity even is. So when we're doing vaccines or when a dog is exposed to a certain disease, we have our secondary immunity, which is the long term immunity. It's the one that's going to protect [them] from getting re infected or infected for the first time, if we're talking about vaccines.

So this secondary immunity is actually divided into 2 types of immunity. We have, like you said, the cell mediated immunity, which is our T cells, and then you have the humoral immunity, which is our B cells and our antibodies. So what is titer testing, and how does it even work? Titer testing is going to check the titer levels. So it's going to check the antibody levels that the dog or the cat currently has. This is going to help us determine how the humoral immunity is working now with certain viruses. And these are the viruses that we are checking for when we titer test, which is parvovirus, distemper virus, and adenovirus for dogs and then for cats, the panleukopenia virus. There is a really strong correlation between the humoral immunity and protection. And this is really important to understand, because when we're tired testing, we are checking antibody levels. And there have been already many studies that have shown that if we know what the antibody level is, we do know with certainty if the dog is protected from these diseases.

Now, currently we don't have a way of checking cell mediated immunity. But what that basically means is that if the dog does have a sufficient titer level, we know the dog is protected. If the dog does not have a sufficient titer level, [the pet] might still have cell mediated immunity. We don't know, because there is no way to check that, and so we are going to recommend to revaccinate the dog at that point, even though there is still a chance that he is protected by [their] cell mediated immunity. But of course, that's a chance that we're not going to want to take without checking so. So that is basically briefly how tighter testing works.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Dr Finn, as a general practitioner and as an owner, you see a lot of pet owners that are coming in, and I feel like more so than ever. They really will ask you, 'does my dog or cat actually need this vaccine? I don't understand why we have to keep getting this vaccine' or whatnot, you hear all different sides about that. What are some conversations that you're hearing from from pet owners when it comes to vaccines?

Hunter Finn, DVM: I mean you hit the nail on the head. A lot of people maybe are not necessarily resistant. They just want to be engaged in their pets care, and they want to know that they're doing the right thing. So I think us as veterinarians need to be able to be well versed in this and not just say, well, this is how we've always done it. So yes, you're 5 different dogs all at different stages of life, all need this vaccine. That's not very individualized care, which is what we're promoting much more at my hospital. And clients seem to really love it. They feel like they're really heard and seen because clients, I feel aren't opposed to vaccines, I feel like they're just opposed to not really having an exact reason for that vaccine, or a lot of them don't even know what each vaccine is for.

So I think veterinarians, at some point, and maybe not all, have kind of lost our way with just how consumed we are, with how busy we are about educating the clients first and allowing them to make the best decision for their pets, and us being a team together. So I pride myself and my staff on just educating each pet parent that comes to the door on what their pet may need for their situation and their age group and their lifestyle, and then we go from there, and clients seem to be very, very receptive to that.