A Meta-analysis of efficacy and safety of sublingual immunotherapy on allergic asthma

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of sublingual immunotherapy(SLIT) in patients with allergic asthma in order to provide reliable evidence for clinical application of SLIT.

METHODS: To search published articles of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in allergic asthma from CNKI, WANFANG, Pubmed and Medline databases. The methodological quality of trials was assessed by Jadad-scale. The heterogeneity was examined by using Stata 11.0 software. Fixed effect model or random effect model was used to pool the data. The articles which could not be pooled were carried out by descriptive analysis. The Egger's and Begg's test were used to evaluate the publication bias.

RESULTS: There were total 6 RCTs included in this text. Compared with control group, SLIT could significantly reduce asthma symptom scores (SMD = -0.89, 95%CI -1.36--0.43, P = 0.000) and asthma medication scores (SMD = -4.53, 95%CI -6.97--2.08, P = 0.000), but not forced expiratory volume (FEV1) of lung function(SMD = 0.19, 95%CI -0.02-0.41, P = 0.078), neither serum sIgE levels (SMD = 0.05, 95%CI -0.58-0.69, P = 0.870). There were no obvious adverse events reported after treatment of SLIT. No publication bias were indicated by Egger's and Begg's tests.

CONCLUSION: SLIT significantly reduces asthma symptom scores and medication scores, suggesting that SLIT is a safe and effective approach of immunotherapy. However, it still needs more highly qualified studies of RCTs to prove.