Subcutaneous Isopathic Immunotherapy of Allergic Asthma in a Mouse Model of Allergic Asthma

Background and Aims: Allergen immunotherapy is a promising potential disease-modifying treatment for allergic patients. Subcutaneous immunotherapy is more effective than sublingual immunotherapy, but subcutaneous immunotherapy is ineffective at a low dose, whereas at high doses it can result in an unacceptably prominent level of systemic reactions. Isopathy is one of the approaches of homeopathy which means employing causative agents or products of a disease to treat the same disease. In the current study, we evaluated the efficacy of subcutaneous isopathic immunotherapy with high diluted ovalbumin (HD OVA) in the treatment of OVA-induced allergic asthma in BALB/c mice.

Methods: All the experiments were conducted in accordance with the Animal Care and Use Protocol of Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran. HD OVA was prepared in 6C homeopathic dilutions, 10⁻¹² wt/vol, and succussed according to HPUS specifications for centesimal scale potencies. During the first week, BALB/c mice were sensitized with OVA and alum. Two weeks later, the mice received HD OVA subcutaneously on days 21, 22, 32 and on day 41 (eight hours after the last challenge) as the treatment. The mice were challenged with OVA (5%) aerosols on days 35, 38 and 41 for 20 min using an ultrasonic nebulizer, and euthanased on day 42.

Results: Our results revealed that subcutaneous isopathic immunotherapy significantly reduced lung-tissue inflammation, number of eosinophils in bronchoalveolar fluid, allergen-specific IgE and IL-4 production. It also insignificantly increased the production of TGF-β and specific regulatory T cells population against the allergen.

Conclusion: Such data suggest that subcutaneous isopathic immunotherapy may be a suitable candidate for the treatment of allergic asthma.

Keywords: Homeopathy, isopathy, asthma, allergy, immunotherapy