Advances in Immunotherapy for Food Allergy

Food allergy is a life-threatening allergic disease that is increasing in prevalence with no approved curative therapy. Standard treatment of food allergy is limited to avoidance of the allergen and supportive management of allergic symptoms and anaphylaxis. Current research, however, has been focused on developing therapy that can modify the allergic immune response in both allergen-specific and non-specific methods. This review will provide an overview of these methods including oral immunotherapy, sublingual immunotherapy, epicutaneous immunotherapy, modified food protein vaccines, anti-IgE monoclonal antibody adjuvant therapy, Chinese herbs, and helminth therapy. [Discovery Medicine 14(76):159-165, September 2012]