Oral Immunotherapy for Food Allergic Patients

There have been quite a few developments in recent months at the Center for Allergy at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center (renamed Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center), so it is a great time for an update!

After much effort we have recently moved our food preparation operations to an expanded and fully-dedicated facility. This relocation provides room to prepare and store food doses for more patients undergoing oral food challenges or oral immunotherapy (OIT) for food allergy, than was possible previously. The facility's location is adjacent to the allergy clinic, allowing for the efficient delivery of doses to the clinic. Overall, the facility expansion has come at an opportune time, as we anticipate a steady increase in demand for OIT in the short and long term. There are currently 236 patients undergoing an active OIT program (114 to milk, and 122 to other foods). Our treenut treatment program continues its growth with twenty-nine patients in active treatment, and forty patients who acheived complete desensitization (60% to walnut, and 20% each to cashew and hazelnut). And we continue to enroll patients in the egg (16 current patients), sesame (24 patients) and peanut (53 patients) programs.

Our clinical acheivements have also directed some of our recent research efforts. The immunolgical mechanisms that allow for successful OIT to occur are complex and are still not clear. Many of the patients consented to provide blood and sera samples before and after treatment. This has allowed us to look for changes in the allergic reactivity of histamine-releasing cells, known as basophils, in response to OIT, and to investigate potential mechanisms behind them. Patient sera contain antibodies which recognize specific food proteins. Some antibodies (IgE-type) are responsible for the development of allergy, and others (IgG4-type) are more associated with food tolerance. Patient sera obtained before and after OIT may provide some insight into the food proteins that can lead to allergy to particular foods, and whether patients undergoing OIT alter their food protein-recognizing antibody profiles from IgE to IgG4-type.

As always, we thank you for your support of this unique and vital project. Please continue to spread the word about our work. 

Summer is here but the work at the Center for Allergy at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center (newly renamed as Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center) has not cooled off. We are pleased to report on our program's recent progress, particularly in the realm of treenut allergy treatment and followup.

As of mid-July , thirty patients have successfully completed one of our tree-nut oral immunotherapy (OIT) programs to either walnut (20), cashew (5), hazelnut (4), or almond (1).  Importantly, patients have been able to continue consumption of their relevant tree-nuts, which is vital for maintaining their desensitization state. Some of the patients have already returned to our clinic for post program checkups, affording us the opportunity to examine immunological markers that may change with successful OIT treatment.  Additionally, as we described in previous updates, several of our patients are allergic to multiple tree-nuts. We have begun investigating whether successful desensitization to one tree-nut via OIT might yield indirect desensitization to others.  Overall, the treenut desensitization program highlights the interplay between the clinical and the research aspects of our work at the Center for Allergy. Clinically, we aim to relieve the burden of food allergy from patients and their families.  In the research arena, we hope to utilize the information from the clinic to better understand the desensitization process, so that it can be optimized and better tailored for individual patients.

Your support allows us to proceed in this work, and we thank you!