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Autoimmune disease induced by allergen specific immunotherapy.
Autoimmune Diseases | Last Active: May 15 8:31am | Replies (20)Comment receiving replies
There are undoubtedly times when specific, accepted medical treatments have the unfortunate effect of causing injury to a few of those being treated. I'm sorry this happened to you. But overall, studies indicate that targeted allergy treatments lessen the occurrence of autoimmune disease in allergic individuals.
This retrospective study, which included Andrejz Bozek as an author, seems to say the opposite, that autoimmune disease incidence is less in SCIT patients:
"Additionally, patients with allergies (group A, B, C) had a decreased risk of developing any of the analyzed autoimmune diseases, HR =0.76 (95% CI: 0.62–0.88), compared with the other subjects (group D). There were no significant differences between groups A, B and C in this regard." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5054798/
From Allan Linneberg: "During the 10-year study period (1997-2006), a total of 18,841 and 428,484 persons were followed in the SCIT and CAT groups, respectively. Receiving SCIT was associated with lower mortality (HR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.62-0.81) and lower incidence of AMI (HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.52-0.93), IHD (HR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.73-1.05), and autoimmune disease (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.74-0.99)."
https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(11)01452-7/fulltext
There is a repeated caution, however, in modern medical literature, which indicates that people with rheumatic autoimmune conditions are are not candidates for targeted immunotherapy (e.g. allergy shots)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35818067/
The other studies you shared are individual case studies, and I cannot find any follow-up larger studies indicating such situation occurs in large groups.
One other question I have - it seems like this happened to you over 20 years ago, and medicine has come a long way. Did you find any information to indicate this was a known issue prior to the articles in 2012? If not, do you think it is fair to accuse a doctor of medical negligence when following the standard of care for the time?
Sue
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I personally spoke with Allan Linneberg and other allergists in Mexico after my situation happened and they ALL came to the conclusion that allergen-specific immunotherapy can induce autoimmune diseases (it is rare but it can occur).
With a prior evaluation (review the history, autoantibodies, etc., a situation like mine can be avoided)
Since the 80s, this situation began to be seen in various parts of the world. In 1989, the recommendation was made to evaluate people in terms of risk of self-immunity before starting SIT. My situation developed in 2002.
The negligence comes from the treatment of me (I was a 13-year-old boy) and my mother. This doctor never wanted to publish my case in the literature and I consider that an event like mine should be published.
His words were "if you are so interested, publish it yourself", and well here I am sharing my experience.
Those "individual cases" at the end of all are lives, lives that, like me, I know suffer.
Published cases indicate an overestimation of the true incidence of development of autoimmune diseases in people receiving SIT
I invite you to search forums for various autoimmune diseases and you will be able to find several stories like mine.
I only hope that this situation is not repeated and the doctors in charge of carrying out these treatments have a little caution, given the "delicate" nature of the subject in Linneberg's own words.
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