Effect of oral immunotherapy in children with milk allergy: The ORIMA study

Abstract

Background: This study was aimed at evaluating the efficacy and safety of oral immunotherapy (OIT) in children with severe cow's milk allergy. Methods: The subjects comprised 28 children (aged 3–12 years) with allergic symptoms that were induced by ≤ 10 mL of cow's milk in an oral food challenge test (OFC). The subjects were randomly allocated to the treatment group (n = 14) and control group (n = 14); the former received rush immunotherapy for 2 weeks, followed by a gradual increase of cow's milk volume to 100 mL for 1 year, and the latter completely eliminated cow's milk for 1 year. Both groups underwent an OFC with 100 mL of cow's milk after 1 year. Results: The treatment group had significantly higher rates of a negative OFC [7/14 (50%) vs. 0/14 (0%), p 100 mL). Conclusions: The effect of immunotherapy was 50%, but the incidence of adverse events was not low. Further studies focusing on safety is necessary to standardize OIT for cow's milk allergy.

Keywords

• Cow's milk allergy
• Efficacy
• Immunotherapy
• Pediatric
• Safety