Allergic asthma: An indication for allergen immunotherapy

Abstract

. Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) as a validated, disease-modifying treatment is nowadays a widely recommended therapy option for allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma. The registration of allergen extracts used for AIT is based on allergen standardization, dose finding trials, and phase 3 trials proving their efficacy in high-quality, statistically significant randomized clinical trials. Real-world evidence (RWE) studies confirm the clinical relevance of these findings. The most data are available for the treatment of patients suffering from allergic rhinitis. Due to the similar inflammatory mechanisms, allergic rhinitis is often associated with allergic asthma. AIT, which induces tolerance against individual allergens, is the approach to treat the underlying mechanisms of these two interrelated respiratory diseases. Some trials have been published focusing primarily on the effect of AIT on parameters of allergic asthma. Here we give a summary of the evidence for the efficacy of AIT in the indication of allergic asthma.

Keywords: allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT); allergic asthma; asthma; environmental allergens; meta-analyses.