Peanut allergies can be life threatening to some--especially in children. Now, though, scientists may have uncovered a way to beat this allergy. They've found that oral immunotherapy (OIT) for children's peanut allergy may be a safe and effective way to help combat the allergy.
"To our knowledge, our findings provide the first well controlled and accurate estimate of the effect size, benefits and risks of desensitization with peanut OIT," wrote Katherine Anagnostou, one of the researchers, in an interview with MedScape.
What is OIT? Essentially, researchers give children small doses of peanut powder taken over several months. This seemed to help them build tolerance in the potentially deadly allergy. In fact, after six months of treatment 84 to 91 percent of children in the trial could safely tolerate 800 mg of peanut powder; that's about the equivalent of five peanuts, according to AFP.
"This made a dramatic difference to their lives," said Andrew Clark, one of the researchers, in an interview with The Seattle Times. "Before the study, they could not even tolerate tiny bits of peanuts and their parents had to read food labels continuously."
The treatment isn't meant to allow children to eat large amounts of peanuts. Instead, it's meant to help prevent a life-threatening situation where a child is exposed to small doses of peanuts in foods. The new treatment could help prevent hospital visits brought on by severe reactions to trace amounts of peanuts.
That said, there were a few that had adverse reactions to OIT. About a fifth of the patients involved reported side effects. Most of these, though, were mild; the most common was oral itching, which occurred in about 6.3 percent of doses. Gastrointestinal issues were also common with 31 children reporting nausea, 31 reporting vomiting and one reporting diarrhea. In addition 41 children developed wheeze (.41 percent of dosese), according to MedScape.
Even with these symptoms, though, the study's results are promising. Yet the treatment is still years away from routine clinical use. There's still uncertainty over whether or not the therapy could provide children with lasting tolerance. In fact, it's possible that the treatment could only give temporary benefits to children. Even so, it may provide scientists with a way to better peanut allergies in the future.
The new study is published in the journal, The Lancet.
