Abstract
The concept of personalized medicine as a diagnostic and therapeutic approach tailored to the medical needs of each patient is currently revolutionizing all fields of medicine and in particular allergology. Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) meets the three main needs for precision medicine: identification of molecular mechanism of disease, diagnostic tools for the mechanism and treatment blocking the mechanism itself. AIT adapts to the spectrum of specific IgE of each individual subject, changing the course and natural history of the disease, so is a clear model of precision and personalized medicine. This first step before the prescription of AIT is to define the sensitization profile of the patient; after that, the healthcare professional has numerous levers for adapting the treatment to the physio-pathological mechanisms involved. AIT allows to adapt treatments to the profile of the patients, but also to the its preferences, to ensure optimal treatment efficacy, resulting in an agile and personalized approach, with the aim to ensure adherence to the treatment, which is usually quite low. AIT also broadens the field of possibilities for healthcare professionals and patients, by allowing to choose the galenic formulation according to patient preferences and on the basis of their clinical history, adapting the product composition to the patient’s sensitization profiles and the underlying biological mechanisms identified at the diagnostic stage, while guaranteeing quality of the prescribed product as the production of allergens and allergoids is today more regulated than in the past years. In the management of AIT, it is also possible to involve patients in decisions throughout their care pathway thanks to multiple services, offering personalized follow-up and support, to ensure the highest treatment efficacy levels, and recalling medication intake, medical appointments and prescription renewals.
Highlights
Starting from its distant introduction as an empirical treatment of hay fever, allergen immunotherapy (AIT) has been developed to achieve recognition of scientific evidence of efficacy and safety [1]
The healthcare professional will have to build multiple efficacy measures adapted to the therapeutic objectives previously defined during the diagnosis
AIT broadens the field of possibilities for healthcare professionals and patients by allowing to:
Summary
Starting from its distant introduction as an empirical treatment of hay fever, allergen immunotherapy (AIT) has been developed to achieve recognition of scientific evidence of efficacy and safety [1]. *Correspondence: erminia.ridolo@unipr.it 2 Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Medicine and Surgery Department, University of Parma, Parma, Italy Full list of author information is available at the end of the article current practice if the prescription is not targeted on the individual characteristics of the patient, influencing negative opinions on such treatment.
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