Abstract
Oral immunotherapy (OIT) has attracted attention as a treatment for food allergies. OIT appeared to increase response thresholds to food antigens, and to induce desensitization. However, the following issues have also been clarified. 1) Adverse reactions were frequent with OIT, and some cases had severe adverse reactions requiring adrenaline injections. 2) When OIT is given to severe cases, there is a high frequency of symptom induction as compared to moderate cases. 3) Desensitization induced by OIT appeared to have failed after a short time. 4) Clinical tolerance induced by OIT seems to be different from tolerance in the natural course of food allergy. 5) Neither the appropriate amounts of foods nor the treatment period during which patients should ingest foods have been established. Although OIT is widely performed as clinical practice in Japan, clinical research on OIT should be performed by allergic specialists.
