THE COMPARISON OF EFFECTIVENESS OF SLOW SPECIFIC ORAL IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR WHEAT ALLERGY USING TWO DIFFERENT INTAKE FREQUENCY.

OBJECTIVE: We performed a constructive study on the effectiveness of oral immunotherapy for wheat allergy using two different intake frequency, and evaluated the impact of intake frequency. SUBJECTS: Of all the subjects who had a positive result in an oral food challenge test for udon (wheat noodles), informed consent was obtained from 49 subjects. Forty-one of the subjects successfully completed testing; data was tabulated for only the 16 in each group who complied with their assigned intake frequency. METHOD: Oral immunotherapy was administered after randomly dividing the subjects into the following two groups according to intake frequency: the frequent group, whose intake was six times/week or more; and the intermittent group, whose intake was two times/week. The ability of these patients to ingest the noodles at the target dose was evaluated after 6 months. RESULTS: After six months, the proportion of subjects who had a negative result on testing with the target dose (20g dried noodle weight for subjects ≤3 years of age, and 50g dried noodle weight for those ≥4 years of age) or who were capable of the target intake within six months was 75%, and there was no difference among the both groups. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that even when intake frequency is reduced to twice/week, no clear difference is seen with the target dose after six months of immunotherapy.