Background: Although the indication for sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) was expanded in pediatric patients with allergic rhinitis in recent years, some patients choose subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT).
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the reason why they chose SCIT in spite of injection pain and high risk of systemic reaction.
Methods: The subjects were 58 patients who diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and introduced SCIT at our hospital between June 2018 and January 2021. The reasons why they chose SCIT were collected from medical records.
Result: The median age at the start of treatment was 9 years 0 months. The most common reason why they chose SCIT was "difficult to maintain adherence of SLIT" in 28 cases (48%). Other reasons were as follows: "side effects of SLIT", "expectation for the effect of SCIT", "young age (under 5 years old)" and "motivation for allergic disease treatment".
Conclusion: Two-thirds of the reasons why they chose SCIT were because it was difficult to continue SLIT for some reasons.
Keywords: allergen immunotherapy; children; subcutaneous; sublingual.