The study is unusual because it focuses not on the precise clinical details of treatment and response but on how patients rate their own progress, weighing the benefits versus the cost and inconvenience of treatment. The study will follow 100 patients receiving immunotherapy for moderate to severe allergies that cannot be alleviated by avoidance or medications. Immunotherapy consists of weekly shots designed to reduce each patient's sensitivity to specific allergies.
Treatment lasts for two to five years.
After two years, the project will be expanded into a nationwide multi-center study involving several hundred patients. Outcomes research, such as this project, represents modern medicine's new emphasis on how to measure treatment effects not just on the disease but on the patients' lives. Another unusual aspect of this study is the diversity of study sites, which includes not just two large academic medical centers but also clinics in smaller hospitals, group and solo practices, every type of setting where this therapy is delivered. This study will give us a better sense of how a common treatment, administered in a 'real-life' setting, is likely to influence the average patient. All rights reserved.