Food Allergy Diagnosis and Therapy

Where Are We Now?

Aleena Syed; Arunima Kohli1; Kari C Nadeau

Disclosures

Immunotherapy. 2013;5(9):931-944. 

In This Article

Abstract and Introduction

Abstract

Food allergy is a growing worldwide epidemic that adversely effects up to 10% of the population. Causes and risk factors remain unclear and diagnostic methods are imprecise. There is currently no accepted treatment for food allergy. Therefore, there is an imminent need for greater understanding of food allergies, revised diagnostics and development of safe, effective therapies. Oral immunotherapy provides a particularly promising avenue, but is still highly experimental and not ready for clinical use.

Introduction

IgE-mediated food allergy (FA) is a growing problem worldwide. Defined as an immune response to a given food that occurs reproducibly upon exposure,[1] FA affects anywhere from 1 to 10% of the population, with greater prevalence in children (4–6% in the USA vs ~2% in adults).[2] This prevalence has been increasing at a rapid rate, as has been demonstrated by data from the USA,[3] UK,[4] Australia[5] and China.[6] Despite this burden, the only currently accepted treatment for FA is complete avoidance of the offending allergen, with epinephrine delivered in the case of accidental ingestions – which occur frequently, even in the most careful patients, and are often undertreated.[7,8] As such, FA is a highly stressful condition, generating elevated anxiety in allergic subjects and their families. FA is associated with significantly decreased quality-of-life scores to a degree that is greater than that seen in many other chronic childhood diseases.[9,10] There is, therefore, an urgent need for an effective therapy for the treatment of FA. Contingent with this is the need for greater understanding of the mechanisms of FA, as well as a need for more precise diagnostics. There is still much that remains unknown, and extensive research in many areas is needed to fully understand this disease and potential treatments. This article aims to address the current state of the field and to speculate on its future.

processing....