A Patch for Lessening Dairy Allergies

About two years ago I posted about the Diallertest Dairy Allergy Skin Test using the Viaskin patch from DBV Technologies as an easier means of allergy testing.

The company is now using Viaskin as a way of diminishing allergies, according to an abstract published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, by Dupont C, et al., "Epicutaneous immunotherapy in severe cow milk allergy: a double blind pilot trial" J Allergy Clin Immunol 2009; 123: S183 and reported on at the current American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology Meeting in Washington. John Gever, a senior editor at MedPageToday.com wrote the article.

Children with dairy allergies were able to tolerate significant quantities of cow's milk after treatment with an investigational dermal patch-based immunotherapy (Viaskin), a researcher said here.

In eight of 13 evaluable children receiving the treatment for three months in a placebo-controlled pilot trial, the maximum amount of milk they were able to tolerate increased at least threefold, reported Christophe Dupont, M.D., Ph.D., of Hopital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.

None of the seven children in the placebo group showed that high an increase in tolerance, he said here at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology meeting. ...

[T]he improvements seen in most participants were enough to prevent them from reacting to foods with trace quantities of milk proteins.

The patch contained 1 mg of milk protein or placebo and was applied every other day to children in the study. Participants were from three months to 15 years of age and underwent oral milk challenges at baseline and after two and three months in the trial.

The mean maximum tolerated milk dose at baseline was 2.1 mL (SD 2.6) and 4.4 mL (SD 5.9) in the active-treatment and placebo groups, respectively.

After three months, the mean tolerated dose tended to increase to 21 mL (SD 24.3) in the active-treatment group compared with 5.4 (SD 5.9) in the placebo group (P=0.37).

While these are positive results, the study group was extremely small. The full study has not been reported and peer-reviewed. The treatment is only available for clinical testing, not from any doctors. And note that the study was funded by DBV Technologies.

So, some possible good news, but good news for a distant future day.