Oral Immunotherapy & Egg Allergies

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease released an article on the 18th summarizing a recent study on the effect of oral immunotherapy in children and adolescents with severe egg allergies. There were only 55 children in the study, which is a rather small sample size. The control group consisted of 15 children who were given a placebo (cornstarch) and the other 40 children were given increasingly larger doses of egg white powder over a period of 2 years. They were tested at 10 months, 22 months, and 24 months. At 10 months 55% of the children in the test group passed an egg challenge test. At 22 months they retested the children who passed the first challenge. 75% of those children had no reaction to eating egg. The children were then taken off the therapy entirely for 2 months and tested again. Eleven children passed the third challenge and continued to have no reaction a year later. So what does this all mean? Roughly 25% of the test subjects given the therapy had lasting effects. This study does indicate that oral immunotherapy could be a possible treatment for some people with egg allergies, but seeing as how their sample size was small and the odds are 3 to 1 that it won't work, I hope this means they will continue to test and perfect their methods.
You can read the full article here: NIAID Article July 18, 2012