Home-based oral immunotherapy protocol with pasteurized egg for children allergic to hen's egg.

BACKGROUND In the last decade the use of different types of oral immunotherapy for food-allergic patients has increased with generally satisfactory outcomes. Cow's milk and hen's egg, a common element in the daily diet, have received the main interest. Most of these immunotherapy regimens are performed in the hospital, causing inconvenience for both children and their parents. OBJECTIVES To assess the efficacy and safety of a home-based oral immunotherapy regimen with raw pasteurized egg. METHODS The study group comprised children aged 6 years and older with allergy to hen's egg proteins, proven by positive skin prick-tests (SPT) and/orspecific immunoglobulin E (sIgE) and positive open oral food challenge (OOFC) with boiled or raw egg. Patients who met the inclusion criteria and signed the informed consent form underwent egg immunotherapy according to an established schedule. RESULTS The treatment was given to 31 of the 36 recruited patients: 80.6% of the intention-to-treat population achieved complete tolerance to the maximum dose equivalent to one raw hen's egg, 3.2% achieved incomplete tolerance, and 16.2% did not achieve an acceptable tolerance dose. Most of the latter patients had a positive baseline OOFC with low doses of boiled egg. The average number of reactions per treated patient was 5.8, most of them grades 1 and 2; there were no grade 4 reactions. CONCLUSIONS This home-based oral immunotherapy protocol proved to effectively induce tolerance to hen's egg in most of the egg-allergic children and its safety profile was acceptable.