Gene studies may help guide length of bee allergy shot treatment course

Allergy to bee venom can lead to severe, life-threatening reactions to stings.  Venom immunotherapy has been found to be extremely effective in protection from reactions to stings, however, how long to treat with bee venom "allergy shots" has remained a complex question.  Initially, researchers thought it would be necessary to continue treatment indefinitely, but more recent studies suggested that 5 years of immunotherapy is usually adequate in developing a long-lasting tolerance to the venom used for treatment.  This is the guideline most physicians today use in determining the length of treatment for bee venom allergy.

While this may be the case for some patients, others may take longer to become completely tolerant of bee stings.   It has now been discovered that there are genetic differences in patients with successful immunotherapy as compared with those who go on to have severe allergic reactions after stopping treatment with bee venom injections.   Therefore, it may be possible in the future to use genetic studies to help identify patients at risk for sting reactions after discontinuation of shots.

J Allergy Clin Immunol 2010;125:1092-7. Niedoszytko M, Bruinenberg M, de Monchy J et al.  Gene expression analysis in predicting the effectiveness of insect venom immunotherapy.