Initiating peanut oral immunotherapy in peanut-allergic children under age four may be more effective, first long term study suggests

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940531

 

 News Release 20-Jan-2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication
The Lancet

 

    The study included 146 peanut-allergic children and measured desensitisation (safe consumption of 5000mg peanut protein powder in a food challenge supervised by researchers after two and a half years of daily treatment) and remission (ability to repeat this food challenge 26 weeks after treatment ended).

    In children who received peanut oral immunotherapy 71% (68/96) achieved desensitisation versus 2% (1/50) in the placebo group, while 21% (20/96) achieved remission versus 2% (1/50) in the the placebo group.

    Further analysis suggested that children who were younger at the start of treatment were more likely than older children to achieve remission. The authors call for more research to investigate this finding, as it may indicate a window of opportunity early in life when peanut oral immunotherapy is more effective.

    Children were closely supervised in this trial, and offered small quantities of peanut protein powder which was increased gradually to 2000 mg daily (equivalent to 6 peanuts). 

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