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A group of US researchers looked at long term benefits of desensitisation injections for insect allergies and found there was a significant benefit for those who'd had immunotherapy. Insect stings are a common cause of serious allergic reactions and allergy desensitisation injections - immunotherapy - have been shown to offer protection. But for parents of children who have had such reactions, the question is whether their child will grow out of it and not need the treatment, which can take a long time and be expensive to complete. A group in the United States have tried to answer this by following up about 500 people who had been seen 10 to 20 years earlier as children with insect sting allergies. Some had had immunotherapy, some hadn't. It wasn't a proper trial so there may be some unreliability in the results. Even so there was a significant benefit for those who'd had immunotherapy. Whether the initial reaction was mild, moderate or severe, there continued to be considerable protection in the decades following the treatment. While a large proportion of those who hadn't had immunotherapy did seem to grow out of the allergy, there were still about 20 per cent who did get a reaction up to 30 years later. The authors recommend immunotherapy for children with a moderate to severe reaction to an insect sting, but not so much for mild reaction.
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