Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) has been in use for the treatment of allergic disease for more than 100 years. Asthma treatment relies mainly on corticosteroids and other controllers recommended to achieve and maintain asthma control, prevent exacerbations, and improve quality of life. AIT is underused in asthma, both in children and in adults. Notably, patients with allergic asthma not adequately controlled on pharmacotherapy (including biologics) represent an unmet health need. The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has developed a clinical practice guideline providing evidence‐based recommendations for the use of house dust mites (HDM) AIT as add‐on treatment for HDM‐driven allergic asthma. This guideline was developed by a multi‐disciplinary working group using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. HDM AIT was separately evaluated by route of administration and children and adults: subcutaneous (SCIT) and sublingual AIT (SLIT), drops, and tablets. Recommendations were formulated for each. The important prerequisites for successful treatment with HDM AIT are (a) selection of patients most likely to respond to AIT and (b) use of allergen extracts and desensitization protocols of proven efficacy. To date, only AIT with HDM SLIT‐tablet has demonstrated a robust effect in adults for critical end points (exacerbations, asthma control, and safety). Thus, it is recommended as an add‐on to regular asthma therapy for adults with controlled or partially controlled HDM‐driven allergic asthma (conditional recommendation, moderate‐quality evidence). HDM SCIT is recommended for adults and children, and SLIT drops are recommended for children with controlled HDM‐driven allergic asthma as the add‐on to regular asthma therapy to decrease symptoms and medication needs (conditional recommendation, low‐quality evidence).

This EAACI position paper aims at providing a state‐of‐the‐art overview on nonallergic rhinitis (NAR). A significant number of patients suffering from persistent rhinitis are defined as nonallergic noninfectious rhinitis (NANIR) patients, often denominated in short as having NAR. NAR is defined as a symptomatic inflammation of the nasal mucosa with the presence of a minimum of two nasal symptoms such as nasal obstruction, rhinorrhea, sneezing, and/or itchy nose, without clinical evidence of endonasal infection and without systemic signs of sensitization to inhalant allergens. Symptoms of NAR may have a wide range of severity and be either continuously present and/or induced by exposure to unspecific triggers, also called nasal hyperresponsiveness (NHR). NHR represents a clinical feature of both AR and NAR patients. NAR involves different subgroups: drug‐induced rhinitis, (nonallergic) occupational rhinitis, hormonal rhinitis (including pregnancy rhinitis), gustatory rhinitis, senile rhinitis, and idiopathic rhinitis (IR). NAR should be distinguished from those rhinitis patients with an allergic reaction confined to the nasal mucosa, also called “entopy” or local allergic rhinitis (LAR). We here provide an overview of the current consensus on phenotypes of NAR, recommendations for diagnosis, a treatment algorithm, and defining the unmet needs in this neglected area of research.

Nasal allergen challenge (NAC) is an important tool to diagnose allergic rhinitis. In daily clinical routine, experimentally, or when measuring therapeutic success clinically, nasal allergen challenge is fundamental. It is further one of the key diagnostic tools when initiating specific allergen immunotherapy. So far, national recommendations offered guidance on its execution; however, international divergence left many questions unanswered. These differences in the literature caused EAACI to initiate a task force to answer unmet needs and find a consensus in executing nasal allergen challenge. On the basis of a systematic review containing nasal allergen challenges of the past years, task force members reviewed evidence, discussed open issues, and studied variations of several subjective and objective assessment parameters to propose a standardized way of a nasal allergen challenge procedure in clinical practice. Besides an update on indications, contraindications, and preparations for the test procedure, main recommendations are a bilaterally challenge with standardized allergens, with a spray device offering 0.1 mL per nostril. A systematic catalogue for positivity criteria is given for the variety of established subjective and objective assessment methods as well as a schedule for the challenge procedure. The task force recommends a unified protocol for NAC for daily clinical practice, aiming at eliminating the previous difficulty of comparing NAC results due to unmet needs.

This report has been prepared by the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Task Force on Allergic Rhinitis (AR) comorbidities. The aim of this multidisciplinary European consensus document is to highlight the role of multimorbidities in the definition, classification, mechanisms, recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of AR, and to define the needs in this neglected area by a literature review. AR is a systemic allergic disease and is generally associated with numerous multi-morbid disorders, including asthma, eczema, food allergies, eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE), conjunctivitis, chronic middle ear effusions, rhinosinusitis, adenoid hypertrophy, olfaction disorders, obstructive sleep apnea, disordered sleep and consequent behavioural and educational effects. This report provides up-to-date usable information to: (1) improve the knowledge and skills of allergists, so as to ultimately improve the overall quality of patient care; (2) to increase interest in this area; and (3) to present a unique contribution to the field of upper inflammatory disease.

The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative commenced during a World Health Organization workshop in 1999. The initial goals were (1) to propose a new allergic rhinitis classification, (2) to promote the concept of multi-morbidity in asthma and rhinitis and (3) to develop guidelines with all stakeholders that could be used globally for all countries and populations. ARIA—disseminated and implemented in over 70 countries globally—is now focusing on the implementation of emerging technologies for individualized and predictive medicine. MASK [MACVIA (Contre les Maladies Chroniques pour un Vieillissement Actif)-ARIA Sentinel NetworK] uses mobile technology to develop care pathways for the management of rhinitis and asthma by a multi-disciplinary group and by patients themselves. An app (Android and iOS) is available in 20 countries and 15 languages. It uses a visual analogue scale to assess symptom control and work productivity as well as a clinical decision support system. It is associated with an inter-operable tablet for physicians and other health care professionals. The scaling up strategy uses the recommendations of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. The aim of the novel ARIA approach is to provide an active and healthy life to rhinitis sufferers, whatever their age, sex or socio-economic status, in order to reduce health and social inequalities incurred by the disease.