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Review
. 2016 Feb;36(1):55-69.
doi: 10.1016/j.iac.2015.08.007.

Oral Immunotherapy for Food Allergy

Allison J Burbank  1 , Puja Sood  2 , Brian P Vickery  3 , Robert A Wood  4
Affiliations
Review

Oral Immunotherapy for Food Allergy

Allison J Burbank et al. Immunol Allergy Clin North Am. 2016 Feb.

Abstract

Food allergy is a potentially life-threatening condition with no approved therapies, apart from avoidance and injectable epinephrine for acute allergic reactions. Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is an experimental treatment in which food-allergic patients consume gradually increasing quantities of the food to increase their threshold for allergic reaction. This therapy carries significant risk of allergic reactions. The ability of OIT to desensitize patients to particular foods is well-documented, although the ability to induce tolerance has not been established. This review focuses on recent studies for the treatment of food allergies such as cow's milk, hen's egg, and peanut.

Keywords: Desensitization; Food allergy; Immunoglobulin E (IgE); Omalizumab; Oral immunotherapy (OIT); Skin prick test (SPT); Sustained unresponsiveness; Tolerance.

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