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The twenty-first century has seen a fundamental shift in disease epidemiology with anthropogenic environmental change emerging as the likely dominant factor affecting the distribution and severity of current and future human disease. This is especially true of allergic diseases and asthma with their intimate relationship with the natural environment.
There is a scarcity of prospective studies investigating the relative roles of skin prick and intradermal testing, serum specific IgE, and extended oral challenges in diagnosing children with reported β-lactam allergies.
The first peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) for children was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2020. While clinical efficacy is established, evidence on cost-effectiveness-whether the benefits outweigh the costs and adverse effects-remains limited. A variant of OIT, known as probiotic and peanut OIT (PPOIT), has shown similar efficacy in trials.
Allergic diseases are rising worldwide, especially in childhood, and their clinical diversity increasingly exposes the limits of traditional phenotype-based classifications. Genetic susceptibility, environmental exposures, epithelial barrier biology, and immune pathways interact to shape highly variable disease trajectories and treatment responses. In this context, precision medicine is no longer only an aspirational concept, but a practical effort to define meaningful endotypes, identify clinically useful biomarkers, and connect biological insight to prevention and care.
The prevalence of allergic diseases across the Australian population, in all regions and age groups, is not well documented. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and distribution of five allergic diseases (allergic rhinitis, asthma, drug allergy, eczema, and food allergy) and examine differences by sociodemographic factors.
Allergic sensitization and reduced ability to respond to viral infections may contribute to virus-induced wheeze and asthma development in young children. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) are rare immune cells that produce type I interferons (IFN-I) and play a key role in orchestrating immune responses against viruses.
Food allergy affects families' quality of life, can be lifelong and life-threatening, urging the identification of early modifiable risk factors. Formula feeding in the first days of life may increase the risk of cow's milk allergy, a risk often attributed to cow's milk allergens exposure. Early formula feeding also reduces the colostrum intake, the first 3 days' milk, which is rich in bioactive compounds critical for immune and gut health. This study investigates whether partial colostrum feeding increases the risk of food allergy beyond cow's milk.
The dramatic increase in the prevalence of allergic disease in recent decades reflects environmental and behavioural changes that have altered patterns of early immune development. The very early onset of allergic diseases points to the specific vulnerability of the developing immune system to environmental changes and the development of primary intervention strategies is crucial to address this unparalleled burden.
Studies examining associations of early-life cat and dog ownership with childhood asthma have reported inconsistent results. Several factors could explain these inconsistencies, including type of pet, timing, and degree of exposure. Our aim was to study associations of early-life cat and dog ownership with asthma in school-aged children, including the role of type (cat vs dog), timing (never, prenatal, or early childhood), and degree of ownership (number of pets owned), and the role of allergic sensitization.
The burden of IgE-mediated food allergy in Australian born children is reported to be among the highest globally. This illness shares risk factors and frequently coexists with asthma, one of the most common noncommunicable diseases of childhood.