Antihistamine premedication in specific cluster immunotherapy: A double-blind, placebo-controlled study☆,☆☆,★
Section snippets
Patients
Forty-five patients, aged 21 to 59 years, who had had seasonal allergic rhinitis for a median duration of 15 years (range, 4 to 49 years), participated in the study. All patients fulfilled the criteria for immunotherapy according to the Position Paper from the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).1 They had severe allergy symptoms in either April and May or May through July, corresponding to the birch and grass pollen seasons, respectively. All patients had a positive
RESULTS
Twenty patients (95%) in the loratadine group reached the scheduled maintenance dose and completed the study in contrast to 17 (71%) in the placebo group. The one patient in the loratadine group, who did not complete the study, stopped immunotherapy after five injections with no SR because of lack of time. The seven patients in the placebo group, who did not reach the maintenance dose, stopped immunotherapy after six to 24 injections. All seven patients experienced SRs (1 to 9 SRs, Fig. 1), but
DISCUSSION
In this study, the number of patients experiencing SRs was high compared with other studies in which the same top dose of allergen was used. In this study 79% of the patients in the placebo group had SRs compared with 5% and 30% in another grass pollen and house dust mite study, respectively.5, 7 These studies used a conventional (1 injection per visit) schedule in contrast to our cluster (2 to 3 injections per visit) schedule. An editorial on SRs reported a higher frequency of SRs in studies
Acknowledgements
We thank Schering-Plough A/S, the staff at the Allergy Unit, and the participants for making the study possible.
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From the Allergy Unit, Medical Department, National University Hospital, Copenhagen.
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Reprint requests: Lone Nielsen, MD, Allergy Unit, Medical Department TTA 7511, National University Hospital, Tagensvej 20, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark.
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