Quality of life associated with maternal anxiety disorder in Russian children and adolescents with food allergy.

Background: Food allergy negatively impacts the quality of life (QoL) and has been associated with increased maternal anxiety. There is currently a lack of data assessing QoL of food-allergic children and adolescents in Russia. We aimed to evaluate the performance of the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire (FAQLQ) measures in a Russian sample of children, adolescents, and mothers and to investigate association between child QoL and maternal general anxiety.

The Potential Role of Allergen Immunotherapy in Stepping Down Asthma Treatment.

For patients whose asthma is controlled and who have a low risk for future exacerbations, current guidelines recommend gradually stepping down pharmacotherapy to identify the lowest dose needed to maintain control. This review article will discuss the benefits and risks of step down in asthma management and the different strategies of achieving step down with particular focus on allergen immunotherapy (AIT). A literature search was conducted to identify studies that assessed the effect of AIT on asthma step down and evaluated this and asthma control as one of the outcomes.

Subcutaneous Immunotherapy and Sublingual Immunotherapy: Comparative Efficacy, Current and Potential Indications, and Warnings--United States Versus Europe.

Subcutaneous immunotherapy and sublingual immunotherapy are effective for allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma and with some support for use in selected patients with atopic dermatitis. The sequence of immunologic responses is the same, irrespective of the route of administration, and similar disease modification has been demonstrated. However, there are differences between the two approaches.

Prospective adherence to specific immunotherapy in Europe (PASTE) survey protocol.

Background: Adherence to allergen immunotherapy is important for its effectiveness. There is currently limited data available on allergen immunotherapy adherence outside of clinical trials i.e.

Sublingual allergen immunotherapy for respiratory allergies: what is new?

Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) is a disease-modifying treatment for respiratory allergies that has been used for many years in Europe and has also recently been approved for use in North America. Its use is thus likely to increase. There is more evidence available regarding SLIT efficacy and its good safety profile, making it an appealing treatment option.

Anaphylaxis: still a ghost behind allergen immunotherapy.

Purpose Of Review: Allergen immunotherapy has been shown to be an effective treatment for respiratory allergies and Hymenoptera venom allergy. However, concern regarding its potential to cause anaphylaxis may limit its use. This review aims to assess whether anaphylaxis is still a worry when administering subcutaneous (SCIT) and sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT).

Allergen immunotherapy: clinical outcomes assessment.

Assessment of clinical outcomes is essential to evaluate the efficacy of allergen immunotherapy, both in clinical trials and in daily clinical practice. "Primary outcomes" used in sublingual and subcutaneous immunotherapy trials include the measurement of symptoms, the use of concomitant medications, and/or a combination of both of these measures. "Secondary outcomes" that have been measured include individual symptom scores, provocation allergen tests, visual analog scales, and health-related quality of life assessments.

Recombinant allergen immunotherapy: clinical evidence of efficacy--a review.

Recombinant allergens for immunotherapy aim to overcome the problems of natural extracts as they can be produced in unlimited amounts with exact physiochemical and immunological properties. These can be modified to have more favourable characteristics including reduced IgE reactivity or enhanced immunogenicity. Different types of recombinant allergens have been evaluated in clinical phase II and III trials whilst others are currently under development.

Comparability of subcutaneous and sublingual immunotherapy outcomes in allergic rhinitis clinical trials.

Purpose Of Review: To conduct a qualitative comparison between the primary and secondary outcomes used in clinical trials of subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) and sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) for allergic rhinitis.

Recent Findings: Studies of SCIT and SLIT for allergic rhinitis published up to January 2012 were included in this systematic review. Different ways of defining primary and secondary outcome parameters in studies investigating specific immunotherapy are described.

An evidence-based appraisal of the surrogate markers of efficacy of allergen immunotherapy.

Purpose Of Review: The assessment of clinical efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with respiratory allergy is highly affected by variability and lack of validated outcome measures such as symptom and medication scores. At the same time, there is a need to identify reliable predictive surrogate markers or biomarkers that may correlate with real clinical endpoints and lead to individually tailored immunotherapy treatment.

Recent Findings: In-vivo markers, such as early and late skin reaction as well as immunological parameters such as IgE levels, IgG subclasses, mucosal IgA, lymphocyte subsets, cytokines and local and systemic inflammatory markers, have been proposed as potential surrogate markers.