Skin Patch Immunotherapy for Allergy Cure

Over the years, there have been a variety of systems via which physicians and researchers have attempted to cure patients of their inhalant allergies.

These include (click here for a description of each):

• Allergy shots
• Under the tongue allergy drops (SLIT)
• Intra-Lymphatic Injections (ILIT)
• Allergy Tablets
• Epicutaneous Immunotherapy (EPIT)
• Intra-Nasal Spray
• Bronchial Inhalers

Well... we can now add skin patches to the list.

European researchers conducted a placebo-controlled, double-blinded trial involving 132 patients with grass pollen allergies. The patients were randomly divided into one of four groups: placebo, low-dose, medium-dose or high-dose patches. Patients applied six weekly patches prepared with grass allergens prior to and during the 2008 grass season and ALL reported improvement in their symptoms (30% in 2008) though one year later, there was a dose-dependent improvement with essentially no improvement in low-dose and placebo groups.

Unfortunately, higher-dose patches had higher rates of adverse events including pruritus, erythema, wheal, or eczema leading to an overall drop-out rate of 8.3% from the study.

This all may sound good and promising, but two of the study's authors hold patents on patch-based immunotherapy which may lead to study bias.

My take? More study is needed...

Reference:
Epicutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy ameliorates grass pollen–induced rhinoconjunctivitis: A double-blind, placebo-controlled dose escalation study. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Volume 129, Issue 1 , Pages 128-135, January 2012