A recent clinical trial, sponsored and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and partly conducted at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), has discovered a groundbreaking treatment to help children and adults with potentially life-threatening food allergies better handle peanut, milk, egg, wheat, and tree nuts. The OUtMATCH study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine one week after the Food and Drug Administration approved Omalizumab to treat multiple food allergies. It is the first and only medicine for children and adults with one or more food allergies.
Dr. Stacie Jones, Professor of Pediatrics, treats allergy patients at ACH and is the principal investigator at Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI), one of 10 sites in the U.S. conducting the OUtMATCH study through the Consortium for Food Allergy Research. Dr. Amy Scurlock, Professor of Pediatrics and a scientist at ACRI, also co-authored the study.
According to Jones, “We estimate that 40% of the millions of people in the United States who cope with food allergies are allergic to multiple foods. This treatment will have a tremendous impact on their quality of life. It will mean they live with less fear of an allergic reaction. This heralds an era of hope and possibility as we move toward more solutions for patients and families living with food allergy.”
The study involved 177 children, adolescents, and three adults who received injections every two to four weeks for four to five months. All the patients were allergic to peanuts and at least two other foods. The study found that Omalizumab, a monoclonal antibody, reduces allergic reactions in children and adolescents if they accidentally eat a food to which they are allergic. Nearly 67% of study participants who received Omalizumab could eat the equivalent of 2.5 peanuts without a moderate or severe allergic reaction, compared to less than 7% of those who received a placebo. The researchers observed similar outcomes for study participants allergic to milk, egg, walnut, wheat, cashew and hazelnut.