Clinical effects of air filters in homes of XXXX adults sensitized and exposed to pet allergens.

@entity1 @entity748 @entity235 @entity565 @entity1514 @entity112 @entity468
BACKGROUND: Despite medical advice, many pet-allergic @entity565 sufferers refuse to remove the pet to which they are sensitized from their home. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the clinical effects of air cleaners in the homes of adult @entity565 @entity1 sensitized and exposed to @entity468 and/or @entity235 . METHODS: We performed a randomized, parallel-group study of 30 @entity748 adults sensitized to and sharing a home with @entity468 or @entity235 . The effects of placing air cleaners in the living room and bedroom for 12 months and using high efficiency particulate air filter vacuum cleaners (active group) were compared with using these vacuum cleaners alone (control group). Measures of airway responsiveness, treatment requirement, lung function, peak flow, reservoir and airborne allergen were recorded before, during and after the interventions. A beneficial clinical response was assessed in terms of a 'combined @entity565 outcome'. This was defined as a two or more doubling dose improvement in bronchial hyper-reactivity to @entity112 and/or a reduction in treatment requirement of at least one step change on the British @entity1514 Society guidelines for @entity565 treatment. RESULTS: A beneficial clinical response was observed in 10/15 subjects in the active group compared with 3/15 in the control group after 12 months intervention (P = 0.01). No significant differences between the active and control groups were detected for changes in measures of lung function, reservoir pet allergen and airborne pet allergen during the study. CONCLUSION: Whilst the study design has not allowed complete exclusion of a placebo effect, we believe that this pragmatic study of adult @entity748 @entity1 sensitized and exposed to pets resulted in a small, but significant improvement in combined @entity565 outcome.
