Medically reviewed and approved by a board-certified member
Allergies

'Breakthrough' treatment for peanut allergy awaits FDA check

By BS MediaTwitter Profile | Published: Sunday, 18 November 2018
BS
Login to get unlimited free access
Peanut allergic reaction makes life more difficult for the millions of people who live with it. "Possible traces" of sum in foods pose a constant hidden threat for them, but a recently developed treatment could shortly help people with peanut allergic reaction become more confident in their food choices.

Peanut allergic reaction may shortly become less of a concern thanks to an effective new treatment.

Information provided last year by specialists from the American College of allergic reaction, asthma attack, and medicine (ACAAI) indicates that about 2.5 percentage of all children in the United States may live with peanut allergic reaction.

This number represents a 21 percentage increase in the number of possible peanut allergies in childhood since 2010, the specialists besides found.

A critical challenge for those living with peanut allergic reaction is identifying between food products that are 100 percentage safe to eat, and those that may trigger an allergic reaction episode.

For some people, the allergic reaction can be significant enough to lead to hypersensitivity reaction, a severe, dangerous reaction. galore food items may contain traces of sum because the factories that produce them besides handle sum.

However, a new treatment developed by experts from research institutions crosswise the world hopes to help individuals with this type of food allergic reaction. The treatment aims to build up enough tolerance to sum so that people with a peanut allergic reaction can handle accidental exposure without any problems.

"We're excited about the potential to help children and adolescents with peanut allergic reaction protect themselves against accidentally feeding a food with peanut in it," says study author Dr. Stephen Tilles, who is besides past president of ACAAI, and consulting adviser for the biotech company Aimmune Therapeutics.

The researchers bestowed their results today at the ACAAI Annual Scientific Meeting in Seattle, WA. These collection besides appear in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Participants see increase in tolerance

"Because there is no approved treatment for peanut allergic reaction, the standard of care has been a strict elimination diet and the timely administration of rescue medications in case of an allergic reaction on accidental exposure," the study authors write.

"However, despite vigilance, accidental exposures may occur and cause reactions of unpredictable severity, even with small amounts of substance, leading to a womb-to-tomb risk of severe reactions," they continue.

The recent study tested the effectiveness of a new oral therapy for peanut allergic reaction called AR101, which is "a [...] peanut-derived, oral biological drug that delivers a target daily maintenance dose of 300 [milligrams] of peanut protein," as the researchers explain in the study paper.

Peanut allergies may shortly be treated with a vaccinum
Will there be a vaccinum for peanut allergic reaction?
Read now

The research team worked with participants aged from 4 to 55 years old, though most of these fell in the 4 to 17 age range. All of the participants lived with peanut allergic reaction.

At the beginning and the end of the study, the volunteers undertook an oral food challenge so that the scientists could establish the severity of their allergic reactions.

Of the total number of participants, common fraction received AR101, piece a third received a placebo. Each person received their allotted substance in increasing doses until they reached the maintenance dose — they continuing to take this amount tor the duration of the study.

The researchers found that by the end of the study, 80 percentage of the participants with success reached the daily maintenance dose, which was the equivalent of about one peanut.

As Dr. Tilles explains, galore participants saw a significant increase in their tolerance to sum. "Our hope when we started the study was that by trfeeding patients with the equivalent of one peanut per day, galore would tolerate as much as two sum," the study author says.

"We were pleased to find that common fraction of the people in the study were able to tolerate the equivalent of two sum per day after 9 to 12 months of treatment, and half the patients tolerated the equivalent of four sum."

Dr. Stephen Tilles

Treatment may shortly become available

Moreover, participants according far less side personal effects throughout the trial than the researchers had foreseen. No more than 6 percentage of the participants experient GI side personal effects that caused them to leave the trial, piece as galore as third of the volunteers only experient mild side personal effects.

As Dr. Tilles points out, "Reactions from the oral challenges at the end of the study were much milder than prior to treatment."

"On average, the participants were able to tolerate a 100-fold higher dose of peanut at the end of the study than they did at the beginning. In addition, the symptoms caused by the 100-fold higher dose at the end of [the] study were milder than the symptoms on the lower dose at the beginning of the study," he adds.

However, "This is not a quick fix, and it doesn't mean people with peanut allergic reaction will be able to eat sum whenever they want," notes some other one of the study's authors, Dr. Jay Lieberman, who is vice chair of the ACAAI Food allergic reaction Committee.

"But," he says, "it is decidedly a breakthrough." He besides expresses the hope that very shortly, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will review the treatment, and that it may be more wide available "in the second half of 2019."

"If that happens," Dr. Lieberman adds, "people who receive and are able to tolerate this treatment should be protected from accidental exposures."

Was this page helpful?
(0 votes)
End of the article