New Patch Could Help Stop Severe Peanut Allergies

I vividly remember peanut butter sandwiches making up the majority of my lunches back in my school days. Different times, I suppose. I don't know how I would have gotten by without a good ol' PB&J. But a ton of kids today don't know that joy. Given the rise of peanut allergies, it only makes sense for school boards to say no to peanuts. However, with this new treatment, maybe nut-free schools will be a thing of the past before long.

Being allergic to peanuts isn't like being allergic to pollen – reactions tend to be severe, and often deadly. Sometimes an Epipen isn't enough to save a life.

And it only takes a small amount to do great damage. Some peanut allergies can even be triggered by airborne particles. That's why so many schools ban peanuts. 

A new patch under development from DBV Technologies could turn that around, however. Phase two of their trial showed that 83 percent of kids aged 6 to 11 could each eat 1,000 mg of peanuts without a reaction after wearing the patch for three years.

Their tolerance for peanuts grew by 10 times over the period of the trial. That tolerance gets built up through the patch, which delivers a tiny (250 micrograms) amount of peanut protein to the skin. Because the peanut protein gets to the immune system through the skin instead of the blood stream, no allergic reaction is triggered. 

The are two methods to deal with allergies not including the patch: desensitizing yourself with small amounts of the allergen, or treating the symptoms.

So kids would have to eat tiny amounts of peanuts and hope for the best to gradually desensitize their bodies to the allergen, or take antihistamines or epinephrine. Clearly that's far from ideal. 

In the third phase of the trial, kids as young as four will be using the patch, and that data will be used to get FDA approval.

DBV Technologies is working on treatments for a few other allergies as well, including milk and eggs.

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