Rhinitis, sinusitis, and upper airway diseaseLong-lasting effects of sublingual immunotherapy according to its duration: A 15-year prospective study
Section snippets
Study design
For more data on study design, see Fig 1. We performed a prospective, open, controlled, 4-parallel-group, partially randomized study involving patients with allergic rhinitis and bronchial hyperreactivity with or without overt asthma solely because of mites. After a baseline evaluation, patients were assigned to the control group (drugs only) or to the SLIT group (SLIT plus drugs). This assignment was made according to patients’ preferences. Patients receiving SLIT were then randomized
Patients
During the screening phase, 198 patients who met the inclusion criteria were identified. Of them, 78 patients (44 male and 34 female patients with a mean age of 22.2 ± 5.2 years) agreed to participate in the study and entered the baseline evaluation from September 1992 to February 1993. Twenty-one patients refused SLIT, received pharmacotherapy alone, and therefore represented the control group. The remaining 57 patients were prescribed SLIT in addition to drugs and were subsequently randomized
Discussion
The most important distinguishing feature between drug therapy and specific immunotherapy is that the latter can profoundly modify the immune response to allergens. In fact, in the last years, it has been shown that the mechanism of action involves numerous components of the immune response, such as regulatory T cells, IgG4 “blocking” antibodies, and TH cell subsets.5 Some of those effects have been recently confirmed also for SLIT.15, 16, 17, 18 The main clinical implication of the mechanisms
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Supported in part by ARMIA (Associazione Ricerca Malattie Immunologiche e Allergiche).
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: I. Spadolini is employed by Anallergo. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.