Peanut allergy debate continues

The prevalence of food allergy continues to increase. Deaths from anaphylaxis fortunately are rare but often have a high profile in the media. With appropriate allergy avoidance and keeping your adrenalin pen always at hand, a tragic and unnecessary death should be avoidable. The Archivist has always been a bit confused about the role and safety of immunotherapy in peanut allergy. It takes quite a commitment and once a patient has been desensitised, they have to continue eating peanuts to maintain that status even if they don’t like peanuts! So it is a big commitment. Chu et al. (Lancet 2019 http://bit.ly/2Jww25S) have completed a systematic review and meta-analysis of efficacy and safety or oral immunotherapy. They have examined over 1000 patients with peanut allergy from 12 studies. They have demonstrated that, over a follow-up for 5.8 years, with high certainty evidence, that compared with allergen avoidance or placebo...

from ADC Online First http://bit.ly/2JXTTek