Biomaterial Database

The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Drug Desensitization. 2022

Barbara C Yang, and Mariana C Castells

Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 60 Fenwood Road, Hale Building for Transformative Medicine, Room 5002-B, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: bcyang@bwh.harvard.edu.

Hypersensitivity reactions to drugs have increased in the past 25 years due to increased exposures and availability of efficient, targeted, and personalized medications. Rapid drug desensitization is a clinical procedure that allows for the safe administration of a drug in patients with a history of such hypersensitivity reactions. Desensitization allows the continued use of first-line therapies, leading to higher efficacy of treatment, fewer side effects, cost-effectiveness, and increased quality of life and life expectancy of patients when compared with the use of second-line therapy. In this review, we discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and how of drug desensitization.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D011788	Quality of Life	A generic concept reflecting concern with the modification and enhancement of life attributes, e.g., physical, political, moral, social environment as well as health and disease.	HRQOL,Health-Related Quality Of Life,Life Quality,Health Related Quality Of Life
D003888	Desensitization, Immunologic	Immunosuppression by the administration of increasing doses of antigen. Though the exact mechanism is not clear, the therapy results in an increase in serum levels of allergen-specific IMMUNOGLOBULIN G, suppression of specific IgE, and an increase in suppressor T-cell activity.	Allergen Immunotherapy,Allergy Shots,Hyposensitization Therapy,Immunotherapy, Allergen,Venom Immunotherapy,Immunologic Desensitization,Therapy, Hyposensitization,Allergen Immunotherapies,Allergy Shot,Desensitizations, Immunologic,Hyposensitization Therapies,Immunologic Desensitizations,Immunotherapy, Venom,Shot, Allergy,Venom Immunotherapies
D004342	Drug Hypersensitivity	Immunologically mediated adverse reactions to medicinal substances used legally or illegally.	Allergy, Drug,Hypersensitivity, Drug,Drug Allergy,Allergies, Drug,Drug Allergies,Drug Hypersensitivities,Hypersensitivities, Drug
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000707	Anaphylaxis	An acute hypersensitivity reaction due to exposure to a previously encountered ANTIGEN. The reaction may include rapidly progressing URTICARIA, respiratory distress, vascular collapse, systemic SHOCK, and death.	Anaphylactic Reaction,Anaphylactoid Reaction,Anaphylactoid Shock,Shock, Anaphylactic,Anaphylactic Reactions,Anaphylactic Shock,Anaphylactoid Reactions,Reaction, Anaphylactic,Reaction, Anaphylactoid,Shock, Anaphylactoid