CAT | Allergy
Vaccination can lower children’s risk of allergy. Cathleen Muche-Borowski and her coauthors present a clinical practice guideline for allergy prevention in the current issue of Deutsches Arzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106[39]: 625-31).
Allergic diseases are becoming increasingly common in Western industrialized countries. As there is still no etiologically based treatment of allergic asthma, hay fever, or atopic eczema, the prevention of these diseases is a matter of special importance.
The majority of the 217 studies that the authors analyzed documented a protective effect of fish consumption in the diet of both the mother and the child. Soy-based baby food, in contrast, has no protective effect. In fact, because preparations of this type contain phytoestrogens, the authors even express concern about a potential harmful effect on health. Furthermore, delaying the introduction of solid food in the child’s diet was not shown to have any beneficial effect on the development of allergy in the German cohort studies that the authors reviewed. (more…)
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Have Egg Allergy? You May Still Be Candidate For Flu Vaccines, Says Allergist
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As flu season got underway this fall, Dr. Catherine Monteleone, an allergist, noticed that her office started to receive an unusually high number of calls from people with egg allergy. They previously had avoided flu vaccines because of their sensitivity to eggs. This year, with all the attention being paid to the novel H1N1 influenza, those patients want to be protected against flu, and they contacted her to find out if they are candidates for inoculation.
“Seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines are produced in chicken embryos eggs so people who have egg allergy generally avoid them,” Monteleone, an associate professor of medicine at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, explained. “But there are ways to get vaccinated.”
Patients first should consult with an allergist about the risks and benefits of vaccination, she recommends. Those with a known history of egg allergy or those who suspect an egg allergy must then undergo a skin test for egg allergy and for the vaccine. “Some people think they have an egg allergy because they experience abdominal upset from eating eggs, but that may not be a true allergy,” she said. “That may be intolerance.” (more…)
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Investigational Sublingual Allergy Immunotherapy Tablet Meets Primary Endpoint In A Study Of Adult Subjects With A History Of Grass Pollen Allergies
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Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) announced that its investigational sublingual Grass (Phleum Pratense) Allergy Immunotherapy Tablet (AIT) has met the primary endpoint in a Phase III study of adult subjects in the U.S. with a history of grass pollen induced rhinoconjunctivitis with or without asthma. The investigational Grass AIT treatment is designed to work by inducing a protective immune response against grass pollen allergy and providing sustained prevention of allergy symptoms, treating both the symptoms and the underlying cause of the disease.
The study was a U.S. multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of the grass sublingual tablet versus placebo in the treatment of grass pollen-induced rhinoconjunctivitis based on the combined (sum of) rhinoconjunctivitis daily symptom score (DSS) and rhinoconjunctivitis daily medication score (DMS) averaged over the entire grass pollen season (GPS). In the study 439 adults were randomized to receive either placebo or grass tablet. The study met its primary endpoint. Additionally, the adverse events experienced by subjects receiving the drug in this study were similar to previous studies in adults and include oral itching, with no new or unexpected findings. (more…)
