The Food Allergy Support Team (FAST), a dedicated group of US-based allergists focused on improving food oral immunotherapy (OIT) practices, conducted a survey among members of the OITAdvisors Google Group in the Spring of 2023. This group consisted of 550 board-certified allergist/immunologists and their respective teams. Out of this group, representatives from 129 private allergy practices participated in the survey. It is worth noting that 97.5% of these practices had treated at least one patient, amounting to a collective treatment of over 26,000 patients.
Key findings
- The survey revealed that these practices predominantly treated specific food allergies, such as peanut (100%), tree nuts (86%), cow milk (80%), egg (79%), seeds (69%), wheat (56%), and legumes (39%). In contrast, fewer than 10% of practices treated fish or shellfish allergies. Furthermore, the majority of these practices (73%) provided treatment to patients who were less than 36 months old, with 22% of them treating patients younger than 9 months.
- The FAST survey focused on the details of food allergy treatment practices and found that 88% of practices initiate dosing using a standard dose, whereas the remainder begin OIT with a challenge. Biweekly dosing is most common (61%), whereas 31% updose weekly.
- Most respondents use retail food for peanut OIT, with 4.5% using the Food and Drug Administration–approved product in <5% of patients.
- Among the 100 practices that treat tree nuts and seeds, 54 use protocols specific for each food, whereas the remainder use a dosing schedule based on their peanut schedule.
A Pdf is available here.
