In an article posted in May of this year, a medication called omalizumab was found to significantly reduce the risk of dangerous allergic reactions in patients with peanut and other common food allergies. Omalizumab is often used as an injectable prescription to treat moderate to severe asthma by preventing IgE binding receptors. This study used 180 participants, with most being under the age of 17 with a peanut allergy as well as at least two or more other food allergies. These participants either got injections of omalizumab or placebo, and after 16 weeks were given peanut proteins to test the effectiveness of the injections. Researchers gave 600mg to both the placebo and test group and found that nearly 70% of the test group were able to tolerate the protein while only about 7% of the placebo group could tolerate the protein. The patients given omalizumab were also able to tolerate other common allergenic foods, like milk and eggs, better than the placebo group. The FDA has now approved omalizumab for treatment of food allergies based on this study. Omalizumab appears to give some protection against allergic reactions, but still only protects against a very small amount of the allergic protein, so those being treated with omalizumab should still be careful and avoid anything they are allergic to. While these results are promising, this study used a relatively small sample size and required participants to receive injections for 4 to 5 months. Further studies could be done to further investigate omalizumab and how it can be made more efficient and effective.
Article link: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/2024/05/good-news-for-food-allergy-sufferers