PURPOSE OF REVIEW IgE-mediated allergy can be treated by subcutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy (SCIT). However, the percentage of allergic patients undergoing SCIT is low, mainly due to the long duration of the therapy and the risk of severe systemic allergic reactions associated with the allergen administration. Typically, SCIT requires dozens of subcutaneous allergen injections that st...

The Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (CSACI) guidelines for the use of allergen immunotherapy were first published in 1995; since then, updated guidelines have been published.1–3 The CSACI has reviewed this topic at its annual meetings and in its official publication.4 We hope that this “Consensus Guidelines on Practical Issues of Immunotherapy” will promote excellence in the...

Allergic diseases represent a complex innate and adoptive immune response to natural environmental allergens with Th2-type T cells and allergen-specific IgE predominance. Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the most effective therapeutic approach for disregulated immune response towards allergens by enhancing immune tolerance mechanisms. The main aim of immunotherapy is the generation of allerge...

The only causative treatment for IgE-mediated allergies is allergen-specific immunotherapy. However, fewer than 5% of allergy patients receive immunotherapy because of its long duration and risk of allergic side effects. We aimed at enhancing s.c. immunotherapy by direct administration of allergen into s.c. lymph nodes. The objective was to evaluate safety and efficacy compared with conventiona...

BACKGROUND The combination of anti-IgE (omalizumab) therapy with ragweed injection immunotherapy for seasonal allergic rhinitis results in a significant reduction in systemic side effects and enhanced efficacy compared with immunotherapy alone. One proposed mechanism of immunotherapy is to induce regulatory antibodies that inhibit facilitated antigen presentation. OBJECTIVES We sought to dete...

BACKGROUND Over the last 100 years, several persistent misconceptions or 'false beliefs' have built up around allergen immunotherapy and its use in allergic rhinitis. This is perhaps because enthusiastic physicians administered complex allergen extracts to a diverse population of patients suffering from heterogeneous atopic conditions. Here, we review evidence that counters seven of these 'fals...

RATIONALE Nasal allergen provocations may be useful in investigating the pathophysiology of allergic rhinitis and effects of treatments. OBJECTIVE To use grass pollen nasal allergen challenge (NAC) to investigate the effects of allergen immunotherapy in a cross-sectional study. METHODS We studied nasal and cutaneous responses in untreated subjects with seasonal grass-pollen allergic rhiniti...

Allergen immunotherapy can desensitize even subjects with potentially lethal allergies, but the changes induced in T cells that underpin successful immunotherapy remain poorly understood. In a cohort of peanut-allergic participants, we used allergen-specific T-cell sorting and single-cell gene expression to trace the transcriptional "roadmap" of individual CD4+ T cells throughout immunotherapy....

Allergen specific CD4+ T cell clones generated from allergic individuals have been shown to produce increased levels of the cytokine interleukin 4 (IL-4), compared to allergen specific clones generated from nonallergic individuals. This difference between CD4+ T cells from allergic and nonallergic individuals with regard to cytokine production in response to allergen is thought to be responsibl...