Allergen-specific immunotherapy of allergy and asthma: current and future trends

Abstract

Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only immunomodulatory and etiological therapy of allergy and asthma. Conventional specific immunotherapy (SIT) with whole-allergen extract is antigen specific, effective on multiple organs, efficient on asthma in defined conditions, provides long-lasting protection and is cost effective. Moreover, SIT is able to prevent the course of rhinitis to asthma. SIT has its drawbacks: the long duration of treatment, the unsatisfactory standardization of allergen extracts and a questionable safety level. Novel approaches are aimed at drastically reducing adverse anaphylactic events, shortening the duration of therapy and improving its efficacy. Novel promising approaches have based their formulation on a limited set of recombinant allergens or chimeric molecules as well as on hypoallergenic allergen fragments or peptides. The simultaneous use of adjuvants with immunomodulatory properties may contribute to improve both the safety and efficacy of allergen-SIT of allergy and asthma.

Keywords::

• adjuvant
• adverse event
• allergy
• asthma
• desensitization
• IgE
• immunotherapy
• peptide
• tolerance

Acknowledegments

The authors thank Ms Myriam Guidoux for technical help in figure preparation.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

F Spertini, C Reymond and A Leimgruber are cofounders and shareholders of Anergis SA, a start-up from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, active in the field of allergy immunotherapy. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.