Editorial: Oral Immunotherapy for the Treatment of Peanut Allergy: Is It Ready for Prime Time? 2014

Robert A. Wood, MD, and Hugh A. Sampson, MD;  Baltimore, Md; and New York, NY

Results of recent studies that suggest that immunotherapy for food allergy may be possible represent one of the most exciting areas of research in our specialty. However, although studies on this topic have certainly provided many encouraging results, we and others have expressed concern that further studies are needed to answer questions regarding both safety and long-term efficacy before bringing these treatments into clinical practice.1-3 It is clear, however, that many do not agree with this conservative viewpoint and, in this issue of the journal, Wasserman et al4 report their experience on the use of peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) in practice settings and in providing this treatment as a clinical tool rather than as a research procedure.

No funding was received for this work.

Conflicts of interest: R. A. Wood has received consultancy fees from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America; is employed by Johns Hopkins University; has received research support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and receives royalties from UpToDate. H. A. Sampson has received research support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH (Consortium of Food Allergy Research); has received funding supporting clinical trials in milk and wheat allergy from the Food Allergy Research Education; has received travel support as chair of PhARF Award Review Committee; has received consultancy fees from Allertein Therapeutics and Regeneron; has received lecture fees from ThermoFisher Scientific, UCB, and Pfizer.

Read the whole editoral and references here:

http://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(13)00457-1/pdf
http://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(13)00457-1/fulltext