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Peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) currently is FDA approved for children 4 to 17 years old. As many as 75% of children can be desensitized to peanuts by gradually increasing (over months) their daily dose of peanut powder to 300 mg protein (about 1 peanut), but the majority of children do not achieve remission or long-term tolerance if they stop consuming peanuts daily.
Researchers at 5 U.S. sites randomized 146 peanut-allergic children (age range, 1–4 years) to peanut OIT (with 2000 mg of peanut protein) or placebo. After about 2.5 years, 71% of the OIT group could tolerate 5000 mg of peanut, signifying that they were desensitized, compared with 2% of the control group. Then, after 26 weeks of peanut avoidance, 21% of the OIT group still coul…