Tolerance Results and Immune Mechanisms in Cow´s Milk and/or Hen´s Egg Allergic Children Following Natural Evolution or Oral Immunotherapy
alerITO
Identification of Mechanisms and Biomarkers Predictive of Tolerance in Children With Food Allergies: Comparison Between Treatment With Oral Immunotherapy and Natural Evolution. alerITO Study
1 other identifier
interventional
68
1 country
1
Brief Summary
Allergy to Cow's milk and hen´s egg proteins are the most common causes of food allergies in early childhood and are associated with the occurrence of adverse events that may be life-threatening, quality of life impairment and negative nutritional and health economic impact. However, contrarily to other food allergy models such as nuts/peanut allergy, milk and egg allergy have greater chances of natural resolution. While around 50% of children may outgrow milk or egg allergy by the age of 5 years old, only 22% of peanut allergic children at the age of 4 years can tolerate this food. However, it is also documented that, at 14 years of age, the persistence of milk and egg allergy still affects around 30% of these children. Standard of care relies on food avoidance and treatment of accidental reactions, but this approach is unsatisfactory because adverse events and quality of life limitations still remain. Milk and egg Oral Immunotherapy (OIT) is the most promising therapeutic alternative and showed good results to induce Desensitization (ability to tolerate the food while it is regularly taken) but insufficient efficacy to achieve Sustained Unresponsiveness (SU) (ability to tolerate the food after a period of avoidance). In the day-to-day practice, families and allergists of milk and egg allergic children frequently face the following dilemma: what is the best approach? Keep waiting for natural resolution or embarking in OIT? At the moment, there are only very limited data to guide this decision, specially in children with mild to moderate allergy, that still after 6 years of age withhold relevant chances of naturally outgrowing their allergy. Our objective is conducting a longitudinal cohort-study of children undergoing food avoidance and children undergoing OIT to assess biomarkers of natural allergy resolution/persistence and OIT Desensitization/Sustained Unresponsiveness trajectories.
Trial Health
Trial Health Score
Automated assessment based on enrollment pace, timeline, and geographic reach
participants targeted
Target at P75+ for phase_1
Started Feb 2026
Longer than P75 for phase_1
1 active site
Health score is calculated from publicly available data and should be used for screening purposes only.
Trial Relationships
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Study Timeline
Key milestones and dates
First Submitted
Initial submission to the registry
February 9, 2026
CompletedFirst Posted
Study publicly available on registry
February 18, 2026
CompletedStudy Start
First participant enrolled
February 18, 2026
CompletedPrimary Completion
Last participant's last visit for primary outcome
December 30, 2029
ExpectedStudy Completion
Last participant's last visit for all outcomes
July 30, 2030
February 27, 2026
February 1, 2026
3.9 years
February 9, 2026
February 25, 2026
Conditions
Keywords
Outcome Measures
Primary Outcomes (1)
Comparison of the proportion of patients achieving SU in the OIT-cohort after 2 years of OIT treatment vs the proportion of patients achieving natural resolution after 2 years of follow up
Month 19 of the study in the OIT-cohort and Month 24 in the NAT-cohort
Secondary Outcomes (3)
Comparison of the median Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire, Parental Form (FAQLQ-PF) score change in patients in the OIT-cohort vs NAT-cohort between baseline and end of study (month 24 for OIT cohort, month 29 for the NAT cohort)
End of study in OIT-cohort: Month 24; End of study in NAT-cohort: Month 29
Number of adverse events with an ordinal Food Allergy Severity Score 5 (oFASS5) ≥2 reported until the end of study in both cohorts, NAT vs ITO
End of study in OIT-cohort: Month 24; End of study in NAT-cohort: Month 29
Comparison of the median burden of treatment score in the OIT-cohort at the end of study (24 months)
End of study in OIT-cohort: Month 24
Study Arms (2)
NAT-cohort
OTHERCow´s milk or Hen´s egg allergic children following standard of care: allergenic food avoidance
OIT-cohort
ACTIVE COMPARATORCow´s milk or Hen´s egg allergic children undergoing OIT to cow´s milk or Hen´s egg respectively
Interventions
OIT is a treatment where incremental doses of a food causing allergy to a patient are given until a target maintenance dose is reached, to increase his/her reactivity threshold
Allergenic food avoidance is the standard of care for patients allergic to food
Eligibility Criteria
You may qualify if:
- NAT-cohort:
- Cow´s Milk and/or Hen´s Egg allergic patients 4 to 10 years old
- sIgE levels to milk OR egg extracts between 0.35 to 35kUA/L
- Positive entry Open food challenge with milk/egg with oFASS5 classification ≥2 with a maximum cumulative dose of up to 4193.7 mg of milk protein or 3110.8 mg of egg white protein
- Having a mild to moderate food allergy severity per the Definition of Food Allergy Severity (DEFASE) score (\<13 points)
- Having signed the informed consent
- OIT-cohort:
- Patients in the compITO study (NCT06976775) who are undergoing OIT and have achieved full desensitization to the food by month 7 of the study (end of study)
- Patients in the compITO study who are undergoing OIT and have achieved partial desensitization (tolerating a dose lower than the total dose, and a minimum of 3 doses above the entry challenge threshold) to the food by month 7 of the study (end of study)
- Having signed the informed consent
You may not qualify if:
- NAT-cohort:
- Positive reaction in the entry open oral food challenge with a baseline Eliciting Dose (ED) 20 below the target ED20 for food. For milk, 23.1 mg (35.7 mg cumulative) of protein, or for egg, 19.5 mg (29.4 mg cumulative) of protein.
- Patient desire or medical indication to initiate OIT at any time within 29 months of study entry.
- No allergic reaction greater than oFASS5 grade 1 in the baseline challenge for the maximum cumulative programmed doses of 4193.7 mg of milk protein, or 3110.8 mg of egg white protein.
- Immunological diseases, immunomodulatory/blocking therapies.
- Severe atopic dermatitis according to the SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) classification
- Severe allergy, according to a DEFASE score ≥13
- Spirometry values with moderate-to-severe airflow obstruction (FEV1 \<70%)
- Poorly controlled asthma according to clinical criteria
- Previous OIT for another food
- Within the first 3 months of treatment with Subcutaneous Aeroallergen Immunotherapy
- Within the first week of treatment with Sublingual Aeroallergen Immunotherapy
- Presence or suspicion of Eosinophilic Esophagitis
- Non-IgE-mediated allergy to milk or egg
- Pregnancy
- +10 more criteria
Contact the study team to confirm eligibility.
Sponsors & Collaborators
Study Sites (1)
Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús. Avenida de Menéndez Pelayo, número 65
Madrid, Madrid, 28009, Spain
MeSH Terms
Conditions
Interventions
Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)
Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)
Central Study Contacts
Study Design
- Study Type
- interventional
- Phase
- phase 1
- Allocation
- NON RANDOMIZED
- Masking
- NONE
- Purpose
- TREATMENT
- Intervention Model
- PARALLEL
- Sponsor Type
- OTHER
- Responsible Party
- PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
- PI Title
- Sponsor-Investigator
Study Record Dates
First Submitted
February 9, 2026
First Posted
February 18, 2026
Study Start
February 18, 2026
Primary Completion (Estimated)
December 30, 2029
Study Completion (Estimated)
July 30, 2030
Last Updated
February 27, 2026
Record last verified: 2026-02
Data Sharing
- IPD Sharing
- Will not share