-
Immunotherapy booth at EAACI 2015
During the EAACI 2015 Congress you will have the oportunity to visit the Immunotherapy booth, in the Clinical Village.Visitors will have the opportunity to attend several topics and meet experts of the field.The main topics that are going to be presented are:1. The problem of polysensitization and the prescription of immunotherapy. We have been working on a Consensus published in Clinical and Traslational Allergy and we will present the main results.2. How molecular diagnosis could help in the identification of the responsible allergen and then how molecular diagnosis could improve allergen immunotherapy? We will show some examples illustrating the topic.3. How allergen immunotherapy should be administered? We are preparing videos showing how allergen immunotherapy is controlled in our clinical settings. The reception of the patient, the registration of the doses, the clinical evaluation prior administration, the administration itself, the period of vigilance after the administration, and so on.4. A booklet to register allergen immunotehrapy. We will show a specific blooklet that we have in Spain to control and register AIT with instructions for Primary Care physicians and nurses and information for patients.5. The selection of the product. We will show the procedure to select the more convinient treatment depending on the composition, the route of administration, an so on. We have a webpage with all the information regarding products commercially available for the prescription of AIT.6. How the ideal clinical setting for administering AIT should be.7. Clinical trials on AIT focusing on different type of studies, outcomes, legislation and so on.Last updated: 18 January 2017 -
IT IG Allergy Schools
EAACI Celebration of 100 years of Allergen-Specific Immunotherapy with three dedicated EAACI Allergy Schools:
The aim of these Allergy Schools is to educate and stimulate the professional and social interactions between young physicians from all over Europe interested in diagnosis and treatment of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma and venom allergy applying allergen-specific immunotherapy (SIT) via subcutaneous (SCIT) and sublingual (SLIT) routes. Additional support for these EAACI/GA2LEN Allergy Schools is kindly provided by the European Allergen Manufacturers Group (EAMG).
Read more about the concept and review the activities by clicking on the following headings and/or pictures.
2016 Allergy School in RungstegaardAllergy School on Allergen Immunotherapy (AIT)
Organisers: EAACI Immunotherapy Interest Group
7 – 9 April 2016
Rungstedgaard near Copenhagen, Denmark
2014 Allergy School in Athens, Greece
2012 Allergy School in El Escoral, Spain
Local organizer: Carmen Moreno
2011 Allergy School in Saariselka, Finland
Allergy School in Saariselka, Finland 2011
Just a click: Additional REAL pictures from the 2011 Allergy School in Finland
2010 Allergy School in Berlin, Germany
Another click: Additional REAL pictures from the 2010 Allergy School in BerlinLast updated: 18 January 2017 -
Task Forces of the Immunotherapy Interest Group
TASK FORCES for 2014:
Task Force on “European Survey on Systemic Adverse Reactions due to Allergen Immunotherapy in real life setting”
Coordinator: MA Calderon
Start date: 2011
Finish dates:
- 2012 (Phase I): Survey design
- 2013 (Phase II): pilot-study (4 European countries)
- 2016 (Phase III): Pan-European survey
Rationale: To date, clinical trials on SIT are based on carefully controlled clinical protocols in experimental conditions with pre-defined patient numbers and therefore specific information on side-effects. Therefore, the aim of this prospective survey is to collect on all adverse reactions which may occur on daily practice in the allergy clinics.
Main objectives:
-To describe the safety profile of immunotherapy, prospectively, in real life setting in Europe.
-To estimate the incidence of clinically relevant systemic adverse reactions due to immunotherapy.
-To determine the number of systemic, anaphylactic and life-threatening allergic reactions occurring per patient and per treatment-year.
Task Force on “Evaluation of adherence to SCIT and SLIT in Europe: PASTE-study”
Coordinators: Melina Makatsori and Gianenrico Senna
Start-date: 2012; Finish-date: 2015
Rationale: Prolonged administration is required in order for allergen immunotherapy to induce long-term immunological and clinical effects. Therefore, adherence is very important. However, there is currently limited data available on immunotherapy adherence outside of clinical trials i.e. in real-life clinical practice.
Main objective of this project is: This is an online survey aiming to prospectively evaluate adherence to sublingual and subcutaneous immunotherapy in adults with allergic respiratory diseases and Hymenoptera venom allergy in real life practice across different European countries.
Current status: Over 1,000 participants from eight countries are currently enrolled. Each participant will be followed up for a 3 year period. Reasons for lack of adherence and discontinuation will also be assessed in order to identify ways to improve this.
Task Force on “Definition of clinical-relevant thresholds of allergen-exposure for analysis of outcomes in AIT-clinical trials"
Aerobiology and Pollution Section & IG on Immunotherapy
Coordinator: Oliver Pfaar
Start-date: 2014
Rationate: The evidence for the effects of AIT is based on controlled and randomized clinical trials (RCTs) using clinical endpoints (such as combined symptom-medication-score (SMS). In RCTs, these endpoints are analysed in pre-defined periods (e.g. entire pollen-seasons or peak pollen seasons). However, there is a high heterogeneity of defining a “pollen season”, the start or end of a season or the definition of “peak pollen season”. Also, the relevant threshold of allergen exposure (e.g. number of airborne pollen triggering a nasal or conjunctival allergic reaction) is not defined throughout the literature. A clear relationship between allergen exposure and the magnitude of combined symptom and medication score caused by this exposure as well as a validation of these interactions have not been analysed or validated yet.
First attempts to correlate exposure to symptoms were conducted under COST0603. However, the conclusions of the study were inconclusive. As a consequence, a direct comparison between different RCTs or a metaanalysis of the efficacy of AIT is limited. In addition, allergen exposure is often accessed as pollen counts of which recent literature shows a possible discrepancy between count and allergen release from these pollen. With house dust mite already the compartment from which the sample is taken is a point of discussion.
Aims:to perform a standardized review of the current data on definitions of clinical relevant exposures (time-periods for evaluation and thresholds) in RCTs with pollen and house dust mite AIT and to give recommendations in addressing specific ‘domains’ of this topic in an EAACI-Position Paper.
Task Force on “Biomarkers for monitoring the clinical efficacy of allergen Immunotherapy"
Coordinator: Mohamed Shamji
Start-date: 2014
Rationate: Several mechanistic and well-designed clinical studies have been conducted to identify and validate biomarkers of successful allergen immunotherapy (AIT) for allergic rhinitis (AR). Most studies have reported both cellular and humoral changes systemically and in the target organ following AIT. However, demonstrating that these immunological changes can be used to monitor the effect of AIT has proven challenging. Careful patient selection and early identification of responders are important to target intervention at those who will benefit and to exclude those who are less likely to respond to AIT. To date there is no consensus on candidate surrogate biomarkers of efficacy or biomarker combinations that are predictive of the clinical response to AIT for AR. Furthermore, clinical management of patients receiving therapy could be significantly enhanced if there were means to identify those who are most likely to respond, when to stop treatment and how to predict relapse. Additionally, these candidate biomarkers would be of major importance for the development of new vaccines and for optimisation of existing treatment regimes.
This TF aims:
1. To collect and compare surrogate/predictive immunologic and clinical biomarker data on the effects of AIT for AR. A bibliography research will be performed.
2. To identify surrogate candidate biomarkers that reflect/correlate to immunological and clinical effect of AIT.
3. To identify surrogate/predictive clinical and immunological candidate biomarkers to monitor the effects of AIT in the target organ and systemically during the early and late allergic responses following allergen exposure.
4. To identify surrogate cellular, humoral and molecular candidate biomarkers to monitor the effects of AIT during and after discontinuation of treatment.
5. To compare the candidate biomarkers in children and adult.
6. Confirmation (or rejection if any) of the candidate biomarkers for monitoring AIT.
Task Force on: "Allergen-specific immunotherapy with rare allergens"
Coordinator: Ludger Klimek
Rationate: Inhalational allergies to e.g. some sorts of pollen, mould spores, animal dander, storage mites, are less frequent than „blockbuster-“ allergies. Nevertheless they are clinically important for individual patients and AIT is a therapeutical option for such individual patients. Therapeutic extracts with rare allergens are a niche market for the industry: no large company-sponsored studies will be performed. Little is known about regional differences. The current regulatory efforts could make AIT impossible with these -more rarely used allergens- in the future, since a downward spiral of Having less evidence – selling less products – performing less studies – having less evidence …. will automatically lead to a decline in use.
Aims
1. To gain data on the efficacy and safety of SIT with rare allergens
2. Define advisable and non-advisable „rare“ allergens for SIT on the base of the current evidence from the literature
3. To write a Consensus Position Statement of IT-IG
4. To prepare a proposal for a European study on SIT with rare allergens, that could be performed later
AIT GUIDELINES FOR CLINICAL PRACTICE
A new initiative of EAACI's President Antonella Muraro!
The Aim of this EAACI project is to develop comprehensive guidelines for clinical practice on Allergen Immunotherapy, embracing all the different stakeholders (e.g. Clinicians, Immunologists, Primary care, Regulatory Bodies, Allied Health Representatives, Patient Organizations).
PAST TASK FORCESLast updated: 18 January 2017
GO TO
FULLSCREEN
FULLSCREEN