Immunotherapy with allergenic extracts in geriatric patients: evaluation of effectiveness and safety

A study has been performed of the prevalence of allergic pathology in the geriatric population attending our department during a period of one year, showing that this type of clinical problem affects 10.4% of our patients 60 years or older. In spite of such considerable prevalence, immunotherapy is not normally used with this age group. This paper describes the results of hyposensitization in 22 of these patients, diagnosed as having extrinsic allergic illness by means of clinical, functional and analytical parameters. We found a significant decrease in cutaneous sensitivity, bronchial hyperreactivity and specific IgE in the patients treated with immunotherapy, as well as a subjective clinical improvement. We feel that immunotherapy can be very effective for the geriatric population, offering the advantages of not requiring self-administration by the older patients and avoiding the secondary effects already described with other kinds of antiallergic medications.