Allergy vaccines: dreams and reality.

Allergy, extrinsic asthma and atopic eczema derive from deregulated immune responses against innocuous antigens. The incidence of atopic diseases is actually affecting approximately 30% of the population in industrialized countries. Although much progress has been achieved in the development of efficient symptomatic treatments for allergic diseases, the only curative treatment remains allergen-specific immunotherapy. In contrast to classical vaccines, which elicit strong host immune responses after one or a few injections, allergen-specific immunotherapy might require a long treatment time of 3-5 years with up to 80 injections to confer some protection. The reality is that 'allergy vaccines' achieve beneficial effects through immunomodulation, which takes a long time to establish. The dream would be to develop highly efficient allergy vaccines able to cure the disease with a few injections.