Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology
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While familial clustering of asthma is known, few studies have reported on the relative roles of paternal and maternal asthma and the role of maternal asthma control in pregnancy on the risk for asthma in the child. ⋯ Careful attention to maternal asthma control, monitoring vitamin D status, and correcting insufficiency at early pregnancy and maintaining the sufficiency status throughout pregnancy have potential preventive roles in offspring asthma or recurrent wheeze.
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In vitro allergy diagnostics are currently based on the detection of specific IgE binding on intact allergens or a mixture thereof. This approach has drawbacks as it may yield false-negative and/or false-positive results. Thus, we reviewed the impact of known B-cell epitopes of food allergens to predict transience or persistence, tolerance or allergy and the severity of an allergic reaction and to examine new epitope mapping strategies meant to improve serum-based allergy diagnostics. ⋯ However, these approaches did not lead to discrimination between clinically relevant and irrelevant epitopes so far, since the polyclonal serum IgE-binding epitope spectrum seems to be too individual, independent of the disease status of the patients. New epitope mapping strategies are necessary to overcome these obstacles. The use of patient-derived monoclonal antibodies instead of patient sera for functional characterization of clinically relevant and irrelevant epitope combinations, distinguished by their ability to induce degranulation, might be a promising approach to gain more insight into the allergic reaction and to improve serum-based allergy diagnostics.
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Clinical Trial
Endotypes of severe allergic asthma patients who clinically benefit from anti-IgE therapy.
Omalizumab, a recombinant monoclonal anti-IgE antibody, was developed for the treatment of severe allergic asthma. Not all these patients respond to omalizumab. ⋯ Most of the severe allergic asthma patients who benefited from omalizumab treatment were IL-33, IL-25 and TSLP aggravated type 2-high endotype. Rhinosinusitis or with a mixed eosinophilic and neutrophilic airway inflammation should be evaluated in patients who partially responded to omalizumab treatment.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Non-atopic rhinitis at age 6 is associated with subsequent development of asthma.
It has been postulated that the association between allergic rhinitis and asthma is attributable to the progressive clinical expression of respiratory inflammation during childhood. The role of non-allergic rhinitis in early life in relation to subsequent asthma has not been extensively explored. ⋯ Childhood rhinitis, even in the absence of atopy, confers significant risk for asthma development through adulthood. These findings underscore the importance of non-allergic mechanisms in the development of asthma.