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Skin patch for peanut allergy yields higher immunity in children
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Children were able to overcome allergic response to peanuts by wearing a skin patch that administered epicutaneous immunotherapy in the form of peanut protein, according to clinical trial findings published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
“To avoid potentially life-threatening allergic reactions, people with peanut allergy must be vigilant about the foods they eat and the environments they enter, which can be very stressful,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, said in a press release. “One goal of experimental approaches such as epicutaneous immunotherapy is to reduce this burden by training the immune system to tolerate enough peanut to protect against accidental ingestion or exposure.”
Hugh Sampson, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and colleagues developed the ongoing, multicenter, double blind, controlled trial. They randomly assigned 74 participants aged 4 to 25 years with allergic peanut disease to treatment with a high-dose (250 μg; n = 25) Viaskin patch (DBV Technologies), low-dose (100 μg; n = 24) Viaskin patch (DBV Technologies) or placebo (n = 25). The researchers assessed peanut allergy at baseline and evaluated participant allergy levels at 1-year following a 5,044-mg peanut protein oral food challenge or significantly higher tolerance to peanut protein.
One-year clinical trial results showed that children who wore the skin patch daily as directed could consume 10 times more peanut protein than prior to treatment with epicutaneous immunotherapy. In addition, the peanut skin patches yielded immune responses similar to results with investigational food allergy immunotherapy. Low-dose and high-dose regimens produced similar effects; 46% of children in the low-dose group and 48% of children in the high-dose group achieved primary endpoint success vs. 12% of children in the control group. However, the researchers observed higher success rates among younger children aged 4 to 11 years (P = .03), and decreased immunity success in children 12 years and older.
“The clinical benefit seen in younger children highlights the promise of this innovative approach to treating peanut allergy,” Daniel Rotrosen, MD, director of NIAID’s division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation, said in a press release. “Epicutaneous immunotherapy aims to engage the immune system in the skin to train the body to tolerate small amounts of allergen, whereas other recent advances have relied on an oral route that appears difficult for approximately 10% to 15% of children and adults to tolerate.” – by Kate Sherrer
Disclosure: The study was funded by NIAID award U19AI066738 and NIH award U01AI066560. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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