Dual treatment with grass, ragweed SLIT well tolerated in adults with AR

Timothy grass and ragweed sublingual immunotherapy tablets are safe and tolerable in adults for the treatment of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, according to study results presented at the Eastern Allergy Conference.

Jennifer Maloney, MD, medical director at Merck Research Laboratories, and colleagues conducted an open-label, multi-center trial composed of 102 adults from across the nation who are allergic to grass and ragweed to assess the safety of a dual treatment of grass and ragweed sublingual immunotherapy.

The trial consisted of three separate periods, each lasting 2 weeks. In the first period, participants received once-daily Timothy grass sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT)-tablet (2800 BAU; Merck/ALK). Participants in the following phase then received short ragweed SLIT-tablet (12 Amb a 1-U; Merck/ALK) every morning and grass SLIT-tablet every evening. In the final period, participants received both once-daily grass and ragweed SLIT-tablet within 5 minutes.

The researchers did not observe systemic allergic reactions, asthma attacks or reactions requiring epinephrine. A small proportion of participants in periods 1 (14%), 2 (22%) and 3 (15%) experienced one or more local swelling events.

Most participants did experienced one or more adverse events in periods 1 (71%), 2 (69%) and 3 (56%). However, less than 5% of participants in each treatment period discontinued treatment because of the adverse events. – by Ryan McDonald

Reference:

Maloney J, et al. Poster V1 . Presented at: Eastern Allergy Conference; May 28-31, 2015; Palm Beach, Florida.

Disclosure: Maloney reports being employed by Merck.