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Peanut allergy is the most common food allergy in Australian school-aged children and is rarely outgrown. Access to oral immunotherapy (OIT), a disease-modifying treatment for food allergy, is limited in many regions of the world, including Australia.
Food allergy is a major public health challenge in Australia. Despite widespread uptake of infant feeding and allergy prevention guidelines the incidence of peanut allergy in infants has not fallen, and prevalence of peanut allergy in school-aged children continues to rise. Therefore, effective and accessible treatments for peanut allergy are required.
Few studies have examined long-term outcomes following oral immunotherapy; none have examined long-term risks and benefits associated with distinct clinical outcomes (desensitization, remission).
The pivotal phase 3 EPITOPE trial, a 12-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of epicutaneous immunotherapy with the VIASKIN patch containing 250 μg of peanut protein (VP250), previously reported significant treatment response versus placebo in peanut-allergic toddlers aged 1 through 3 years.
The predisposition to food allergy development and the induction of allergen-specific immune responses appears to be initiated early in infancy. Early exposure to food allergens, such as peanut and cashew nut, via human milk is likely important in initiating oral tolerance and reducing risk of food allergy development. This trial aims to determine if the risk of developing peanut and cashew nut allergy during infancy can be reduced by a high peanut and cashew nut maternal diet during lactation.
Nutrition is a modifiable lifestyle factor that may play a role in allergic disease prevention. This article summarizes current evidence on the antenatal diet as a consideration for strategies to prevent child food allergy. As eczema in early infancy substantially increases the risk of food allergy development, the effects of maternal dietary intakes during pregnancy on infant eczema outcomes will also be discussed.
Remission is the desired outcome following OIT as it allows individuals to discontinue treatment and eat the allergen freely. Early initiation of OIT in infants and toddlers has been embraced as an approach to increase the likelihood of remission. However, there is no high-quality evidence supporting younger age as an independent factor driving remission; available studies are limited by small samples of younger subjects and lack of adjustment for confounding covariates, particularly peanut-specific IgE (sIgE) levels which is closely cor
The incidence of anaphylaxis is increasing globally in tandem with changing environmental and lifestyle factors. There is very limited data on very early childhood presentations. We aim to assess changes in rates, characteristics and management of infant anaphylaxis in a paediatric ED over a 15-year period.
Oral immunotherapy is effective at inducing desensitisation to allergens and induces sustained unresponsiveness (ie, clinical remission) in a subset of patients, but causes frequent reactions. We aimed to investigate whether addition of a probiotic adjuvant improved the efficacy or safety of peanut oral immunotherapy.
Although evidence suggests that the immune system plays a key role in the pathophysiology of nut allergy, the precise immunological mechanisms of nut allergy have not been systematically investigated. The aim of the present study was to identify gene network patterns and associated cellular immune responses in children with or without nut allergy.