With over 200 patients and 900 desensitizations performed each year, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Desensitization Center provides rapid desensitizations to patients in need of first-line therapy who have severe allergic reactions to chemotherapy, monoclonals, antibiotics, NSAIDs, and many other medications.
Rapid drug desensitization (RDD) is a procedure that induces temporary tolerance to a drug, allowing a medication allergic patient to receive the optimal agent for his or her disease.
Please join Dr. Castells as she reviews the center’s work in the advancement of RDD to provide improved survival and increased quality of life for patients. Specifically, how in vitro internalization of specific antigen, IgE and high-affinity receptor for IgE (FcεRI) were impaired in desensitized bone marrow Mast Cells demonstrating that rapid IgE desensitization is antigen specific and inhibits early and late mast cell activation responses and internalization of the antigen/IgE/FcεRI complexes.