NICE expands access to allergy immunotherapy tablets for children

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended expanding access to allergen immunotherapy tablets for children. Under the draft recommendations, Acarizax will be available to children aged 5 to 11 with severe house dust mite allergy, and Itulazax will be approved for young people aged 5 to 17 with birch tree pollen allergy. These daily treatments aim to build immune tolerance over a three-year period, potentially benefiting more than 2,000 children in England by reducing reliance on conventional symptom management.

In a separate clinical study published in the Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences, researchers evaluated the safety of subcutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy (SCIT) in 623 children with moderate-to-severe allergic rhinitis. The study found that SCIT was generally well tolerated, with systemic reactions occurring in 10.7% of cases. Most reactions were mild-to-moderate, and no life-threatening incidents or fatalities were reported. The study noted that asthma was an independent predictor of systemic reactions in the pollen subgroup, emphasizing the need for asthma control during treatment.