Clinical efficacy and safety of preseasonal sublingual immunotherapy with grass pollen carbamylated allergoid in rhinitic patients. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to confirm the clinical efficacy and safety of a preseasonal sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) in a group of allergic patients with seasonal rhinoconjunctivitis with or without mild intermittent or mild persistent asthma. The immunotherapy was administered through the oral mucosa with a monomeric carbamylated allergoid (allergoid SLIT) for grass pollens. A secondary endpoint was to evaluate the effect of the allergoid SLIT on nasal reactivity. Methods and results A single-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed.Patients were selected and randomly allocatedto two groups: one group received active treatment (allergoid SLIT) for 2 years and the otherreceived placebo. Both groups received the necessary drug treatment throughout the trial. Thirty-three outpatients (20 men and 13 women, mean age: 30 years; range: 19-43) attending our center were enrolled in the study. Symptoms and medications were scored on diary cards during the pollen season. An allergen nasal challenge was performed at baseline and after 2 years of SLIT to evaluate nasal reactivity. Because the clinical scores were non-normally distributed, the Mann-Whitney and the Chi-square tests for intergroup comparisons and the Wilcoxon test for intragroup comparisons were used. The results were evaluated after 1 and 2 years of treatment. Between the first and second years of treatment, no changes in the scores for the placebo group were found, while for the active vaccine group significant decreases were found in rhinorrhea (p Conclusions The results of this study show thatthe allergoid SLIT is safe and effective in decreasing symptom scores and drug use in rhinitic patients allergic to grass pollen.