Role of immunotherapy in the treatment of allergic asthma

Table 1 Head-to-head studies which included patients with asthma treated by subcutaneous and sublingual immunotherapy¹

Ref.	Year	Study Design	Age	No of patients	Asthma symptom score				Medication score				Findings
					Before SIT		After SIT		Before SIT		After SIT
					SCIT	SLIT	SCIT	SLIT	LSCIT	SLIT	SCIT	SLIT
Mungan et al[29]	1999	Single-blind, placebo controlled	Adults	SCIT (n = 10) SLIT (n =15) Placebo (n = 11)	1.2	0.63	0.59	0.41	6.8	4.93	3.9	1.97	Reduction in symptom scores with only SCIT Reduction in medication scores with both SCIT and SLIT
Eifan et al[30]	2010	Open label, randomized, controlled	5-10	SCIT (n = 16) SLIT (n = 16) Pharmacotherapy (n = 16)	0.9 ± 0.7	1.4 ± 1.5	0.4 ± 0.6	0.2 ± 0.4	2.4 ± 1.4	2.8 ± 1.2	1.7 ± 1.4	1.2 ± 0.9	Reducttion in symptom and medication scores and visual analog scores with both SCIT and SLIT
Keles et al[31]	2011	Open label, randomized, controlled	5-12	SCIT (n = 11) SLIT (n = 13) SCIT plus SLIT (n = 14) Pharmacotherapy (n = 12)	0.25	0.12	0	0	0.52	0.69	0.06	0.23	Reduction in symptom scores and visual analog scores with both SCIT and SLIT
Yukselen et al[32]	2012	Randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled	6-14	SCIT (n = 10) SLIT (n = 11) Placebo (n =10 )	2.4	3.7	1	2.7	2.3	2.3	1	1.7	Only SCIT was found superior to placebo on reduction of symptom and medication scores

¹All studies used HDM immunotherapy. SCIT : Subcutaneous immunotherapy; SLIT: Sublingual immunotherapy; SIT: Specific immunotherapy.