Use of a rapid latex agglutination technique to measure C-reactive protein levels in dogs

The measurement of C-reactive protein levels is becoming a useful tool in canine clinics to evaluate a number of infectious and inflammatory diseases, however the technique currently used is expensive and unavailable in Brazil. The present study had the aim of testing a low-cost and easy-performing technique for clinical determination of C-reactive protein serum levels in dogs. Thus, the serum originate from venous blood collection of thirty, 12-fastened, male and female, healthy dogs, shared in control group (n=15) and obese group (n=15) was submitted simultaneously to both techniques to determine C-reactive protein serum levels, considering the currently used ( ELISA) the gold standard technique. Lower levels of C-reactive protein were observed in obese group, through as ELISA (p < 0.001) as latex agglutination as compared by non-parametric ANOVA and Wilcoxon test (p<0.01). Additionally, the techniques showed a significant positive correlation between each other (p < 0.001; R-2 = 0.62). Latex agglutination showed to be an efficacious and clinically useful test to semi-quantitative measurement of C-reactive protein levels in canine species.