Quality of Life Improves Significantly After Real-World Oral Immunotherapy for Children With Peanut Allergy

Abstract

To evaluate the quality of life (QoL) of patients with peanut allergy receiving peanut oral immunotherapy (POIT) at an academic center.Patients aged 4 to 17 years with a physician-established diagnosis of peanut allergy who opted to receive POIT.A total of 21 patients underwent POIT between June 2018 and August 2019. QoL scores were assessed with the use of a validated food allergy QoL questionnaires. Changes in QoL scores were measured for each patient before and after POIT.There was a significant improvement between baseline and successful desensitization to 300 mg peanut protein in the overall food allergy QoL score. Significant improvements were seen for the subscales regarding social and dietary limitations and concerns about accidental exposure and allergic reaction severity. There was a high rate of successful treatment completion (95%).This group reports on successful POIT with improvement in QoL. After treatment, patients had fewer concerns about unintentional exposures and the severity of allergic reactions, with fewer limitations in dietary choices and social interactions.Previous studies regarding QoL after POIT were done in research settings in controlled trials. This group shows that the improvement in QoL can also be found in clinical settings outside of these controlled trials. QoL is an important outcome of therapy for patients and their families and may help in the decision to undergo OIT or not. Although this was a small, uncontrolled study, results support what many of us have found in clinical settings, that most families want protection from a potentially severe reaction from accidental ingestion.