Sublingual immunotherapy for treating allergic conjunctivitis

Sublingual immunotherapy appears to be effective for ocular symptoms in patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis or allergic conjunctivitis compared to placebo.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study limitations (unclear allocation concealment in some trials)

Summary

A Cochrane review included 42 studies with a total of 3958 subjects. Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) induced a significant reduction in both total ocular symptom scores (standardised mean differences ,SMD, -0.41 95% CI -0.53 to -0.28; 36 trials, n=3399; I² = 59%) and individual ocular symptom scores for red eyes (SMD -0.33; 95% CI -0.45 to -0.22; 20 trials, n=1211), itchy eyes (SMD -0.31; 95% CI -0.42 to -0.20; 28 trials, n=3020) and watery eyes (SMD -0.23; 95% CI -0.34 to -0.11; 21 trials, n=2641) compared to placebo. Those participants having active treatment showed an increase in the threshold dose for the conjunctival allergen provocation test (SMD 0.35; 95% CI 0.00 to 0.69; 4 trials, n=250). No significant reduction was observed in ocular eye drops use (SMD -0.10; 95% CI -0.22 to 0.03; 13 trials, n=1038).

Clinical comments

Date of latest search: 18.1.2011

Ədəbiyyat

1. Calderon MA, Penagos M, Sheikh A et al. Sublingual immunotherapy for treating allergic conjunctivitis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2011;(7):CD007685.