New treatments for allergen immunotherapy

Allergen-specific immunotherapy (SIT) represents the only curative and specific way for the treatment of allergic diseases, which have reached a pandemic dimension in industrial countries affecting up to 20-30% of the population. Although applied for 100 years to cure allergy, SIT still faces several problems related to side effects and limited efficacy. Currently, allergen-SIT is performed with vaccines based on allergen extracts that can cause severe, often life threatening, anaphylactic reactions as well as new IgE sensitization to other allergens present in the extract. Low patient adherence and high costs due to long duration (3 to 5 years) of treatment have been commonly reported. Several strategies have been developed to tackle these issues and it became possible to produce recombinant allergen-SIT vaccines with reduced allergenic activity.