Evaluation of plasma folate and homocysteine concentrations in cats with and without oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is a devastating disease with an extremely poor long-term prognosis even with aggressive therapy. Folate and homocysteine derangements are identified in people diagnosed with head and neck SCC. The purpose of this study was to measure plasma folate and homocysteine concentrations in cats diagnosed with oral SCC (n = 13) and to compare these concentrations with those found in cats diagnosed with other tumour types (n = 25), cats with oral, non-neoplastic disease (n = 6) and healthy cats (n = 24). The median plasma folate concentration in cats diagnosed with oral SCC was 14.7 ng mL(-1), while the median plasma homocysteine concentration was 2.61 microg mL(-1). These concentrations did not differ significantly from those of cats in the other groups. This suggests that different factors may contribute to the pathogenesis of this tumour in cats when compared with people, although evaluation of larger numbers of cats may still identify a difference between groups.