At Austin Family Allergy & Asthma, we are happy to announce we now offer cashew oral immunotherapy (OIT) for our tree nut allergic patients. Cashew is the most common tree nut allergy and is rarely outgrown. Cashew commonly cross reacts to pistachio, so following cashew OIT, most patients can safely ingest pistachios as well.
Cashew will now be the fourth food we offer for OIT, joining peanut, milk, and egg. OIT is a 4-6 month process with weekly in-office dosing visits. The goal at the end of 6 months is for patients to be able to safely eat a target dose of 10 cashews a day.
We currently have enrolled 33 patients in OIT with the majority for peanut allergy. The patients have ranged in age from 3-31 years of age and so far, 17 have successfully completed the therapy. Our first completed patient has been safely eating 4- 8 peanuts a day for the past year. It is important to remember that OIT is a treatment and not a cure for food allergy. Daily consumption of the allergic food must be continued indefinitely.
Please call to set up an appointment if you or your child has cashew allergy and are interested in learning more about this therapy.
