Oral Immunotherapy for Multiple Food Allergies Proves Safe and Effective

Grouping multiple food allergies into one oral immunotherapy (OIT) course is just as safe and effective as single food OIT, according to research that was to be presented at The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology Annual Meeting. The meeting was originally scheduled to be held March 13 to March 16 in Philadelphia, PA, and was postponed due to COVID-19. Science, including poster presentations, was posted digitally. 

The retrospective review was conducted with patients receiving peanut OIT from April 2014 through September 2018 and a second set of patients who received multiple food allergy immunotherapy from February 2015 through September 2018. Patients were encouraged to undergo diagnostic allergy testing each year and required to record any epinephrine use from reactions.

Patients were placed on a dosing schedule—multi-food patients were treated with an average of 2.4 foods—with the goal of reaching maintenance dosing. 

“According to the study, 85% of peanut OIT patients reached their maintenance dose compared to 80% of those on multi-food OIT,” explained AAAAI in a press release. “The median amount of time it took to reach the maintenance dose was 245 days for peanut OIT and 231 days for multi-food OIT patients.”

“What we discovered is that instead of cycling through multiple six to 10-month single food courses, we can safely combine multiple foods into one OIT course,” said Hugh H. Windom, MD, FAAAAI. “This gives patients with multiple food allergies more options when it comes to treatment plans.”

During the trial period, 13% of peanut OIT patients and 8% of multi-food patients reported having to use epinephrine during the first
year of treatment. There were no reports of severe anaphylaxis. 

Patients most commonly stopped OIT in both groups due to noncompliance and delayed gastrointestinal symptoms. Researchers concluded that these results “indicate that overall, there were little differences in effectiveness and safety when comparing single food OIT to multi-food OIT.” —Edan Stanley