Background:

Allergen-specific immunotherapy is an important therapeutic modality for the management of allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma.

Objective:

To assess the effectiveness and safety of allergen-specific subcutaneous immunotherapy in patients with respiratory allergies at the University Hospital of Puebla after twelve months of treatment.

Methods:

A longitudinal, sequential, analytic, quasi-experimental, prolective study. The study was carried out for twelve months with patients of both sexes, aged four to sixty-five years, diagnosed with asthma and/or rhinitis, and with sensitization to aeroallergens. The CARAT and Portnoy questionnaires were collected every two months in order to assess the effectiveness and safety respectively.

Results:

47 patients were included: 37 (78.7 %) of them were female. The average age was 29.8 years. 76.6 % of them were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, and 23.4 % of them were diagnosed with both asthma and allergic rhinitis. The comparison of averages of the initial CARAT questionnaire against the final average by means of a student’s t-test showed a t-value of -8.86 and a p-value of < 0.05. A total frequency of local adverse reactions of 19 % and systemic adverse reactions of 2.1 % was reported after 6 and 12 months of treatment.

Conclusions:

The assessed scheme of immunotherapy, derived from the Mexican clinical practice guidelines of immunotherapy 2011, is effective with a desirable safety profile.

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