Britain has a “vastly under-utilised” area of medicine with massive potential for treating people with common allergies such as hay fever, it has been claimed.
Speaking 100 years to the day that the first paper on allergens – the substances that cause allergic reactions – was published in The Lancet, Dr Glenis Scadding, president of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) said the UK should be championing the use of immunotherapy.
The treatment involves exposing patients to small quantities of allergens to train the immune system to cope with them.
Instead a lack of provision means few people receive the therapy, which is said to affect the natural history of the disease.
“Recent surveys suggest that more than 20 per cent of UK adults suffer from hay fever, and 40 per cent of British children have an allergy diagnosis,” she said.
“As the birthplace of immunotherapy, the UK should be championing its use. Sadly this is not the case as immunotherapy is vastly underutilised despite epidemic proportions of allergic disease, which significantly impair quality of life, work and school performance, largely due to under-provision of allergy services within the NHS and poor understanding on the part of payers.”
The BSACI, with the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI), is now calling for a commitment to further immunotherapy research.
At its annual meeting in Istanbul, the EAACI will publish a European Declaration on Allergen Immunotherapy, which describes immunotherapy as “one of the most rewarding fields in terms of return, translational value and European integration”.
“Immunotherapy has not received adequate attention from the European research funding bodies,” it adds.
BSACI and EAACI said studies exploring the full cost of allergic rhinitis and asthma are impaired by the variety of health systems across Europe. The macro-economic impact of allergies and the long-term cost-effectiveness of immunotherapy need further detailed evaluation and attention.
There is also a need to raise awareness of immunotherapy as it is often mistakenly considered to be an “alternative, non-proven treatment”, adds the Declaration.
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