title: Food specific oral immunotherapy: a potential treatment for food allergy.
abstract: Food allergy is a potentially life-threatening condition affecting up to 8% of children and up to 2% of adults in westernized countries. There are currently no approved treatments for food allergy apart from avoidance. The apparent increase in incidence of food allergies over the past few decades calls attention to the need for effective, disease-modifying therapies for food allergies. Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a promising experimental treatment in which food allergic patients consume increasing quantities of food in attempt to increase their threshold for allergic reaction. Studies are ongoing to determine whether OIT is capable of safely inducing not only desensitization but also tolerance to the allergenic foods. This article focuses on recent relevant studies of OIT for the treatment of common food allergies.
authors.affiliation: a University of North Carolina, Department of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Allison J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Burbank
authors.forename: Wesley
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Burks
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D003888:Desensitization, Immunologic / Q000379:methods*; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: desensitization; double blind placebo-controlled food challenge; food allergy; omalizumab; oral immunotherapy; probiotic; sustained unresponsiveness; tolerance