ORLANDO – Omalizumab increased reaction-free rapid drug desensitization for patients with hypersensitivity to chemotherapy, according to research presented at the joint congress of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology and the World Asthma Organization.
Dr. David I. Hong
Nick Andrews/MDedge News
“In about 99% of patients, a desensitization protocol will be effective enough to allow patients to receive the relevant chemotherapy treatment,” Dr. Hong said in an interview. “However, in a small minority of patents, no matter what we try, we simply cannot desensitize them – those are the patients we looked at in this study.”
Patients received 300 mg of omalizumab every 4 weeks for three treatment sessions. During the 12-week treatment period, patients continued their normal chemotherapy regimens via rapid drug desensitization following protocols previously published by Castelles et al.