Serum Onconeural Antibodies in Dogs and Cats for Early Diagnosis of Cancer

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in dogs and cats worldwide, and effective early detection techniques and reliable therapies are still lacking. Given the high demand for early cancer detection and differentiation in veterinary diagnostics, we developed and validated a new diagnostic approach to assess onconeural antibodies, also known as high-risk antibodies, in dog and cat blood serum samples. We determined the presence of systemic onconeural/high-risk (ONHR) antibodies, their suitability for early cancer diagnostics, and the feasibility of differentiating various malignancies. Our results identified several ONHR antibodies in 0.1 mL of specimens by the immunoblot-based technique, which was confirmed by indirect immunofluorescence assay. The diagnostic performance for detecting identified antibodies has demonstrated >95% sensitivity in dogs, >93% sensitivity in cats, as well as >97% specificity in dogs, and >95% specificity in cats. Thus, our data provide the first proof-of-principle that onconeural antibodies can be detected in dogs and cats, and their identification in serum might serve as a new tool for early cancer diagnosis.