Viewing Pediatric Food Oral Immunotherapy Through an Ethical Lens-A Narrative Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Food allergy remains a common problem and a lifelong condition for many children. In recent years, food allergy management has increasingly involved conversations about food oral immunotherapy (OIT). Although ethical considerations of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice implicitly inform these conversations, applying these principles can be complex, particularly in young children. Families of young children assume a role of surrogate decision-maker and must balance immediate risks with the hope of longer-term benefits. OBJECTIVE: To explore implementation of OIT in children through an ethical lens. METHODS: To evaluate OIT through an ethical lens, we conducted a literature search to explore currently published frameworks in this area. RESULTS: Evaluation of the harm principle, the basic interest principle, and the best interest principle of parental decision-making can be informative. Shared decision-making continues to be central to the process of engaging with patient-family units to individualize the best care, at the right time, and minimize decisional discord. Although OIT is well-positioned to promote health and well-being, challenges to equity, sustainability, and organizational support must be considered to improve access for appropriate patients. CONCLUSIONS: Whereas approaches to food OIT may be tailored to the individual context of each patient-family unit, ethical principles must guide decisions to initiate and continue therapy. Traditional ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice remain cornerstones when considering the ethical context of OIT.

Food allergies on vacation-there and back again.

OBJECTIVE: Food allergy is an important public health concern that affects all facets of life, and travel is no exception. We sought to provide a scoping review regarding the literature pertaining to management of FA while traveling. DATA SOURCES: Medline and Embase were queried for English-language articles published in the last 20 years containing "food allergy" and "travel". STUDY SELECTIONS: The search produced 83 references which were reviewed. After removal of duplicates and irrelevant material, 23 references that discussed travel and FA remained, 13 of which were conference abstracts published as supplemental material. RESULTS: Priorities for consideration by patient-families and their allergist-immunologist include concern for reactions away from home, proximity to emergency medical services, risk for various methods of travel including potential for cross-contact exposure resulting in symptoms, and considerations for international travel including language barriers. CONCLUSION: Patients with FA must use careful planning and preparation to ensure access to safe food and emergency medications at all times while away from home.

Oral immunotherapy: The answer to peanut allergy?

Peanut and tree-nut allergies have increased dramatically in prevalence, especially in children. Historically, children with food allergies have been treated through strict avoidance of the allergen. Recently, an oral preparation of peanut allergen (Palforzia) was approved for immunotherapy (ie, desensitization) in children 4 to 17 years old. This article reviews oral immunotherapy and its role in children with peanut allergies.

Use of emergency backup resources during open food challenges at a pediatric tertiary care center.

Background: Oral food challenge (OFC) remains the criterion standard diagnostic procedure for food allergy. Although the need for OFCs has increased, some allergists may not perform them due to the risk for adverse events and lack of backup resources. Objective: The study aimed to elucidate the frequency of reactions in which emergency backup resources were used and reported on various challenge outcomes at a tertiary pediatric hospital. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed children and young adults (ages, 0-21 years) who completed OFCs in 2013-2018 at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital. Demographics, atopic history, culprit food, reaction history, and diagnostic testing as well as challenge details and outcomes were collected and analyzed. Results: A total of 1269 challenges of 812 unique patients ages 5 months to 21 years were reviewed. More than half of challenges were performed in patients with a history of a reaction and positive testing result before challenge. The foods with the highest proportion of allergic outcomes were egg, sesame, and baked egg. More than one-third of challenge reactions were grade 3 or 4 anaphylaxis when using a food-induced anaphylaxis grading scale. Epinephrine was used for reactions in 7.2% of all challenges. Reactions in five challenges (0.4%) prompted utilization of backup emergency resources. Conclusion: On review of nearly 1300 OFCs, emergency backup resources were rarely used, despite a large proportion of moderate-to-severe reactions. The need for backup resources during food challenges is rare, which suggests that most typical allergy offices are able to treat OFC reactions.

Moving Past "Avoid All Nuts": Individualizing Management of Children with Peanut/Tree Nut Allergies.

It has been common practice to tell patients with allergy to peanut or tree nuts to avoid all nuts. Evidence that unnecessary avoidance of peanuts and eggs is associated with increased risk for developing anaphylaxis to those foods has changed how allergists view previous recommendations to avoid foods that have not caused a reaction. In the absence of evidence, collaborative decision making between clinicians and families should be used to decide whether to avoid tree nuts and how to safely introduce tree nuts into the diet. This article discusses the options for introducing tree nuts to children with peanut allergy.

Differing Performance of the Warning Signs for Immunodeficiency in the Diagnosis of Pediatric Versus Adult Patients in a Two-Center Tertiary Referral Population.

PURPOSE: Primary immunodeficiency (PID) represents disorders with a spectrum of clinical presentations. The medical community seeks clinical features to prompt evaluation for immunodeficiency given improved prognosis with early identification. We hoped to identify clinical characteristics that would improve the diagnostic accuracy of the widely disseminated Jeffrey Modell Foundation warning signs for immunodeficiency. METHODS: We performed a retrospective chart review in a two-center North American cohort of patients with PID. Charts of 137 pediatric and 400 adult patients with PID were evaluated for the presence of these warning signs and compared to controls with normal preliminary biochemical immune evaluation. RESULTS: Fewer than 45% of adults with PID presented with ≥ 2 warning signs, while diagnostic utility was improved in the pediatric population where the warning signs were found to be 64% sensitive. The warning signs found in a significantly increased proportion compared to controls differed for pediatric PID patients (recurrent pneumonia (OR 2.9, p < 0.001), failure to thrive (OR 2.1, p < 0.001), need for IV antibiotics (OR 2.1, p < 0.001), serious bacterial infection (OR 4.8, p < 0.001), recurrent otitis media (OR 1.5, p = 0.027)), versus adult PID patients (recurrent otitis media (OR 2.9, p < 0.001), recurrent sinusitis (OR 2.1, p < 0.001), diarrhea with weight loss (OR 2.2, p < 0.001), recurrent viral infection (OR 3.3 p < 0.001)). In evaluation for additional criteria to promote identification of immunodeficiency, linear regression models showed slightly improved diagnostic accuracy of the warning signs with the addition of autoimmunity in our pediatric PID cohort (8.7% v 2.8%, p < 0.001, ROC 0.58). Adult PID patients demonstrated atopy more frequently than controls (48.0% vs 40.3%, p = 0.011), while atopy was found to have a negative association with the presence of PID in the pediatric age group (OR 0.3, p < 0.01). No improvement in diagnostic accuracy of the warning signs was found with the addition of allergic disease, autoimmunity, or malignant and benign proliferative disease in the adult cohort. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate poor diagnostic performance of warning signs for immunodeficiency in patients with PID in a retrospective chart review. Divergent warning signs of statistically significant diagnostic utility were found in pediatric versus adult patients. We suggest education of physicians on differing presentations of possible immunodeficiency between age groups, and expansion of the warning signs to include non-infectious comorbidities such as autoimmunity in pediatric patients.

What is new in managing patients with food allergy? Almost everything.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review aims to describe current concepts in managing patients with food allergy. There have been many recent advances in the management of patients with IgE-mediated reactions to food, including diagnosis, prevention, management, and ongoing research in the field. Food allergy is increasing in prevalence and may be life threatening. This review aims to highlight changes in recommended practice when diagnosing and managing patients with food allergy. RECENT FINDINGS: Early introduction of highly allergenic foods, particularly peanut, has been shown to decrease the risk for development of food allergy in patients who are at elevated risk. Avoidance of foods without a clinical history of food allergy may increase the risk of subsequent allergy. Epinephrine remains the first line therapy for anaphylaxis, and patients and families need to be instructed on indications and technique for use. Promising research is ongoing in areas of immunotherapy to food allergens. SUMMARY: Food allergy is a potentially life-threatening condition that may persist throughout adulthood. Practitioners should be aware of changes to recommendations for the diagnosis, prevention, and management of patients with food allergy.

Murine leukemia virus envelope gp70 is a shared biomarker for the high-sensitivity quantification of murine tumor burden.

The preclinical development of anticancer drugs including immunotherapeutics and targeted agents relies on the ability to detect minimal residual tumor burden as a measure of therapeutic efficacy. Real-time quantitative (qPCR) represents an exquisitely sensitive method to perform such an assessment. However, qPCR-based applications are limited by the availability of a genetic defect associated with each tumor model under investigation. Here, we describe an off-the-shelf qPCR-based approach to detect a broad array of commonly used preclinical murine tumor models. In particular, we report that the mRNA coding for the envelope glycoprotein 70 (gp70) encoded by the endogenous murine leukemia virus (MuLV) is universally expressed in 22 murine cancer cell lines of disparate histological origin but is silent in 20 out of 22 normal mouse tissues. Further, we detected the presence of as few as 100 tumor cells in whole lung extracts using qPCR specific for gp70, supporting the notion that this detection approach has a higher sensitivity as compared with traditional tissue histology methods. Although gp70 is expressed in a wide variety of tumor cell lines, it was absent in inflamed tissues, non-transformed cell lines, or pre-cancerous lesions. Having a high-sensitivity biomarker for the detection of a wide range of murine tumor cells that does not require additional genetic manipulations or the knowledge of specific genetic alterations present in a given neoplasm represents a unique experimental tool for investigating metastasis, assessing antitumor therapeutic interventions, and further determining tumor recurrence or minimal residual disease.