More promising results from sublingual immunotherapy for peanut allergy

Tuesday, 15 March 2011 09:25

Eighteen peanut-allergic children aged 1 to 11 years took part in a placebo-controlled double-blind clinical study whereby the participants completed 6 months of dose escalation and 6 months of maintenance dosing followed by a double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge.

The researchers reported that any dosing side-effects experienced by the participants were mild and did not normally require treatment. During the food challenge, the treatment group safely ingested 20 times more peanut protein than the placebo group (1,710 vs 85 mg). At the end of the 12 month period, markers of allergy such as wheal size, basophil responsiveness and peanut-specific IgE levels had decreased in the treatment group. It remains to be seen whether continued peanut sublingual immunotherapy is able to induce long-term immune tolerance.

Reference: Kim et al. 2011. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Vol 127(3) pp. 640-646.e1. DOI:10.1016/j.jaci.2010.12.1083