Boiled Peanut Oral Immunotherapy for the Treatment of Peanut Allergy: a Pilot Study

Peanut allergy is increasingly common, especially in countries such as UK and Australia. There is currently no accepted routine clinical therapy to cure peanut allergy. Recently studies have looked at desensitising people with peanut allergy by giving them small daily doses of roasted peanut. Although this therapy works for some people, its effects are not generally long lasting and it is associated with many side effects during protocol, resulting in a significant rate of drop-outs. Pilot data suggests that boiled peanut is less immunogenic than roasted peanut, and may therefore provide a safer way of inducing desensitisation in patients who are allergic to roasted peanut, by first inducing tolerance to boiled peanut. Study hypothesis: Increasing doses of boiled peanut can induce desensitisation to roasted peanut, in peanut-allergic individuals.