Pill Rather than Allergy Shots for Ragweed

If all goes well, in 2013 there will be a pill a patient can take rather than allergy shots to tone down the immune response to not only grasses (Grazax), but also ragweed.

The active ingredient in this ragweed pill is Ambrosia artemisifolia, the chemical found within ragweed that causes allergy symptoms.

Phase III trials with this pill taken once/day for 52 weeks conducted by Merck show a significant improvement in allergy symptoms by nearly 25%. Use of allergy medications like anti-histamines and steroid nasal sprays decreased by about 40%.

Just as in allergy shots, it is felt that repeated exposure to the actual allergen will induce immune tolerance. As such, rather than treating the symptoms as with anti-histamines, this medication will theoretically prevent the allergy from appearing in the first place.

Of course, side effects were present and akin to allergies it is supposed to prevent.

There is no published data yet, but results were presented at the 2012 AAAAI meeting.

Source:
New allergy pill may tame ragweed symptoms. MSNBC 3/4/12

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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

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