Task Forces

Section: Asthma
Chair: Zuzana Diamant
Chair: Sven Seys

Relevant literature:

Section: Asthma
Chair: Milos Jesenak
Secretary: Susanne Vijverberg

Relevant literature:

- Matucci, A. et al. Is IgE or eosinophils the key player in allergic asthma pathogenesis? Are we asking the right question?

- Vijverberg, S. et al. Clinical utility of asthma biomarkers: from bench to bedside

Section: Asthma
Chair: Enrico Heffler
Secretary: Marteen van den Berge

Relevant literature: 

- Heffler, E. et al. Inhaled corticosteroids safety and adverse effects in patients with asthma

- Canonica GW. et al. Shadow cost of oral corticosteroids-related adverse events: a pharmacoeconomic evaluation applied to real-life data from the Severe Asthma Network in Italy (SANI) registry

Section: Asthma
Chair: Margarida Couto
Secretary: Santiago Quirce

Relevant literature: 

- Couto, M. et al. Oxidative stress in asthmatic and non-asthmatic adolescent swimmers - A breathomics approach

- Piacentini GL. et al. Swimming in chlorinated pools and risk of asthma

- Nieuwenhuijsen, MJ. et al. The chlorine hypothesis: fact or fiction?

Research has demonstrated that allergy is poorly managed outside the specialty area. This means that if a health care professional does not get proper education in the field of allergology, his/her knowledge on allergic diseases is limited. Nevertheless, there is a desire amongst health care professionals to improve diagnosis by acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills. This task force is therefore working on developing a series of logograms (word pictures/statements) for the clinical decision support system, to aid non-allergy specialists in the diagnosis of allergic disorders. With this work, the task force hopes to support the health care professionals in Europe to achieve better diagnosis and treatment for allergies.

The task force has put together an excellent team of experts that will collect patient questionnaires and consult the appropriate guidelines in the field, to finally create these helpul logograms and flow diagrams.

Interest Group: Allied Health and Primary Care
Chair: Dermot Ryan
Secretary: Pascal Demoly

Chair: Marek Jutel 
Secretary: Ioana Agache

Relevant literature: 

- Johansson, SGO. et al. A revised nomenclature for allergy: An EAACI position statement from the EAACI nomenvlature task force

Section: Pediatrics
Chair: Graham Roberts
Secretary: Marta Vazquez Ortiz

Relevant literature: 

- Pinart, M. et al. Systematic review on the definition of allergic diseases in children: the MeDALL study

- Roberts, G. et al. Development of a quality-of-life assessment for the allergic child or teenager with multisystem allergic disease

 

The Task Force is set up to investigate the availability of adrenaline/epinephrine auto-injectors worldwide and review anaphylaxis emergency plans. Also the current trend in the use of undesignated or "stock epinephrine" will be reviewed.
To collect the necessary data, surveys are designed en send out to a selected group from the Patient Organisations Committee and International Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Alliance members. The surveys will be a Consumer Survey; A Patient Organisation Survey and an evaluation of the existing and used Anaphylaxis Emergency Plans.
Food Allergy Canada as pares inter pares of the involved patient organizations will lead the research in collaboration with McMasters University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
The Pilot phase was in 2015/16 and the preliminary results were presented during the EAACI Annual Congress. In 2016 we updated the surveys with the feedback from the working group and the surveys were finalized and translated into the national languages of the participating patient organizations.
At this moment the manuscript of the Consumer survey is in process and the data analysis of the Patient Organisation Survey has been completed as is the review of the Anaphylaxis Emergency Plans.
Next steps will be to produce the conclusions based on the analysis of the different surveys and review and to produce the manuscripts.

Chair: Susan Wasserman 
Secretary: Jennifer Gerdts

This Task Force aims to provide recommendations  to clinicians on the design of clinical trials for  allergic  diseases  in children further to the European Medicine Agency -EMA guidelines requesting specific clinical trials in the pediatric age prior to any marketing authorization  .

Chair: Antonella Muraro 
Secretary: Philippe Eigenmann

Both human patients and domestic animals, such as dogs, cats and horses, suffer from allergic diseases. Often people and their animals share the same environment, respond to the same allergens and have similar clinical symptoms. Therefore both human and veterinary allerologists (and their patients) could benefit from studying similarities and differences between allergies in humans and animals.
Task force on allergens in veterinary medicine started in 2013 with the aim to provide comprehensive overview of allergens implicated in allergic diseases in domestic animals. After a publication of a position paper on allergens in veterinary medicine in Allergy the task force decided to broaden its scope and produce a series of review/position papers comparing allergic diseases in humans and animals, covering pathogenesis, allergens involved, clinical presentation, diagnostic tools and treatment as a reference for both human and veterinary allergologists. So, far three comparative position papers were published in Allergy (on allergens, on food allergy and on allergen immunotherapy) and currently the task force is working on a manuscript comparing insect hypersensitivities in people and animals.

Chair: Jozef Janda
Secretary: Douglas DeBoer

The Basophil Activation Test External Quality Assurance Taskforce (BAT EQA TF) aims to establish a novel type of Scientific and Clinical Steering Committee witin EAACI to oversee quality of allergy diagnosis. Standardised operating protocols for BAT will allow multicenter testing of rare allergens, and reliable multicenter studies to be carried out within European academic and clinical institutions. Proper standardisation of BAT and availability of EQA for clinical laboratories are required by many European Member State Authorities. It is a unique opportunity for EAACI to remain in control of these standardisation processes to enhance quality of care for the allergic patient. 

Chair: Hans Jürgen Hoffmann
Secretary: Anna Nopp

The precise diagnosis and the best treatment of allergic diseases requires the use of new early markers of severity and control of therapeutic efficacy. Metabolomics and transcriptomics are new tools that offer valuable information in the field of Allergology. The level of knowledge of these innovative techniques is generally low among the members of the EAACI. MOOCs are a powerful educational tool, easy to access and highly versatile, which until now have not been used by the EAACI.
The objetive of this project is to carry out basic training in metabolomics and transcriptomics using a MOOC..
The Faculty of Pharmacy of the CEU San Pablo University (Madrid) has a Center of Excellence in Metabolomics (CEMBIO) that works in collaboration with the Institute of Applied Molecular Medicine (IMMA) of the Faculty of Medicine of the same University.
Researchers from both centers will design a basic course in these techniques that will be offered through a MOOC. The course will be published in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Chair: Tomas Chivato 
Secretary: Domingo Barber

A placebo is a substance that does not have any therapeutic value. Commonly, placebos are administered in clinical trials to the control set of patients (control group). In this way, the effects of the drug being tested on a certain patient group can be compared with the control group to determine the efficiency of the drug. In certain trials, the placebo groups have shown improvement of the disease despite not being prescribed a therapeutic compound. This phenomenon is called the placebo effect and is harmful for the outcome and conclusions of the trial because it impairs determining the real benefit caused by the active component.
In allergen immunotherapy (AIT) there is a quite a large report of placebo effects, increasing the need to rethink the design of AIT clinical trials, including the selection of the placebo.
Together, the group of experts in this task force aim to review the basis of placebo effects in AIT and investigate the relevance of placebo effects in these clinical trials.

Interest Group: Allergen Immunotherapy
Chair: Oliver Pfaar

Relevant literature: 

- Frew, A. & Pfaar O. Placebo effects in allergen immunotherapy: an experts' opinion

- Narkus, A. et al. The placebo effect in allergen-specific immunotherapy trials

- Frew, A. et al. Assessment of specific immunotherapy efficacy using a novel placebo score-based method




After a quick run down memory lane, Sergio Bonini explains the placebo effect, most recent discoveries and exciting suggestions to circumvent this problem in AIT clinical trials.

Interest Group: Allergen Immunotherapy
Chair: Jasper Kappen
Secretary: Oliver Pfaar

Relevant literature: 

- Jutel M. et al. International consensus on allergy immunotherapy

- Pfaar O. et al. Recommendations for the standardization of clinical outcomes used in allergen immunotherapy trials fro allergic rhinoconjunctivitis: an EAACI position paper

- Pfaar O. et al. Clinical trials in allergen immunotherapy: current concepts and future needs

Chair: Oliver Pfaar
Secretary: Petra Zieglmayer

Relevant literature:

- Pfaar, O et al. Allergen exposure chambers: harmonizing current concepts and projecting the needs for the future - an EAACI position paper

Allergen-Immunotherapy is effective and safe but time-consuming. Patient adherence is critical for its beneficial effects. The aim of our taskforce is to evaluate the published evidence to optimize adherence for patients and to provide instruments to patients and health professionals to optimize the use of this critical lever in the treatment of allergic diseases.

Chair: Adam Chaker
Secretary: Mohamed Shamji

Phase I: An interdisciplinary Task Force of the Immunotherapy Interest Group and the Aerobiology and Pollution Interest Group of the EAACI (2015-2016) has recently published standardized definitions for pollen seasons (birch ( Betula sp..), grasses (Poaceae), Cypress (Cupressus spp.), Olive (Olea spp.), Ragweed (Ambrosia spp.)) in an EAACI Position Paper (#1).
Phase II: In a next step, an international cooperation of allergologists, aerobiologists and environmental informatics experts demonstrated the robustness and sensitivity of the aforementioned season defintions in a retrospective analysis of pollen count data from up to 40 pollen monitoring stations in Germany over five consecutive years (2012-2016) (#2).
Ref:#1: Pfaar O, Bastl U, Berger U et al.: Definiing pollen exposure times for clinical trials of allergen immunotherapy for pollen-induced rhinoconjunctivitis – an EAACI position paper. Allergy 2017; 72: 713-722
#2: Karatzas K, Riga M, Berger U , Werchan M, Pfaar O, Bergmann KC: Computational validation of the recently proposed pollen season definition criteria. Allerry 2017: doi 10.1111/all. 13255

Chair: Oliver Pfaar
Secretary: Christian Bergmann

To date there is no consensus on candidate surrogate biomarkers of efficacy or biomarker combinations that are predictive of the clinical response to AIT for AR. Furthermore, clinical management of patients receiving therapy could be significantly enhanced if there were means to identify those who are most likely to respond, when to stop treatment and how to predict relapse. Additionally, these candidate biomarkers would be of major importance for the development of new vaccines and for optimisation of existing treatment regimes. This TF aims: 1)To collect and compare surrogate/predictive immunologic and clinical biomarker data on the effects of AIT for AR. . 2)To identify surrogate candidate biomarkers that reflect/correlate to immunological and clinical effect of AIT. 3) To identify surrogate/predictive clinical and immunological candidate biomarkers to monitor the effects of AIT in the target organ and systemically during the early and late allergic responses following allergen exposure.  4)To identify surrogate cellular, humoral and molecular candidate biomarkers to monitor the effects of AIT during and after discontinuation of treatment. 5) To compare the candidate biomarkers in children and adult. 6) evaluate a pan"omic" approach of biomarker discovery and clinical applicability Position Paper.

Chair: Mohamed Shamji
Secreatary: Carsten Schmid-Weber

Interest Group: Allied Health and Primary Care
Chair: Gawlik Radoslaw
Secretary: Bertine Flokstra-de Blak

Relevant literature: 

- Ryan, D. et al. Challenges in the implementation of the EAACI AIT guidelines: A situational analysis of current provision of allergen immunotherapy

Interest Group: Allergen Immunotherapy
Chair: Pablo Rodriguez del Rio
Secretary: Montserrat Alvaro

Relevant literature: 

- Dhami, S. et al. Allergen immunotherapy for IgE-mediated food allergy: procol for a systematic review

- Zuidmeer-Jongejan, L. et al. FAST: towards safe and effective subcutaneous immunotherapy of persistent life-threatening food allergies

- Rodriguez del Rio, P. et al. Evaluating primary end points in peanut immunotherapy clinical trials

Food allergy represents a prevalent disease, affecting around 8% of European children and 2-5% of adults. Standard treatment
is based upon avoidance and the use of rescue medication in case of accidental exposure to the trigger. For the last decades, but especially in the last 10
years, important advances have been made in order to provide an etiological treatment to treat this disease.
All these treatments, so called food immunotherapy, aim first at protecting the patient by increasing his/her reactivity threshold, and in some cases, patients are even allowed to introduce these foods (mostly milk, egg and peanut) freely in their diets. All these advances are being achieved thanks to the effort of both Academia and Industry by conducting large food immunotherapy trials to provide evidence of its efficacy. However, the way efficacy is measured significantly varies from study to study, limiting the chances to make direct comparisons, and thus, potentially selecting the most suitable for each candidate in the future if these become available.
The aim of the current task force is to evaluate all clinical variables of efficacy used in food immunotherapy trials, and try to make recommendations on the convenience of using each of them. Eventually, the team might be able to make recommendations for the selection of this variables in future immunotherapy trials.

Chair: Pablo Rodriguez del Rio
Secretary: Montserrat Fernandez Rivas

Chair: Madeleine Rådinger, Sweden
Secretary: Susanne Krauss-Etschmann, Germany

There is a myriad of animal models used for understanding pathogenesis of allergic disease and for testing novel treatment strategies. The models address immune responses in the skin, nose, airways, eyes, gastrointestinal tract and circulation (e.g., anaphylaxis). Although there are tissue-specific differences like airway goblet cell hyperplasia, skin-specific changes, etc., there are many features that are shared among allergic disease, including the use of the same antigens and allergens, e.g., ovalbumin, house dust mite, the type of immune response with eosinophilia, eosinophilic inflammation, and antigen-specific IgE. The models in each discipline are well established and have a huge amount of data that overlap and could be standardized to reduce redundancy and improve learning. A comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the current optimal tissue-specific allergic models and the potential to combine data to improve our understanding of disease pathogenesis is lacking. Therefore, we established a cross-platform Task Force with multidisciplinary expertise in different model systems of allergic disease. The aims are to conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art review on experimental animal models of allergic disease focused on understanding the similarities and differences between tissue-specific allergic disease and the importance of animal models and how they translate to clinical medicine.

Chair: Michelle Epstein
Secretary: Mario Noti

Section: Basic and Clinical Immunology
Chair: Cristina Stellato
Secretary: Franziska Roth-Walter

Relevant literature: 

- Roth-Walter F. et al. Comparing biologicals and small molecule drug therapies for chronic respiratory diseases: an EAACI task force on immunopharmacology position paper

Section: Basic and Clinical Immunology
Chair: Liam O'Mahony
Secretary: Carina Venter

Relevant literature: 

- Venter, C. et al. Nutritional aspects in diagnosis and management of food hypersensitivity - the dietitians role

- Mazzocchi, A. et al. The role of nutritional aspects in food allergy: prevention and management

- Marcos, A. et al. Changes in the immne system are conditioned by nutrition

In Europe, approximately 150 million citizens suffer from chronic allergic diseases and 7 million Europeans have food allergies. If treated adequately almost €150 billion could be saved per year by preventing the reduced productivity and the higher medication costs associated with inadequately treated allergy and asthma (Source: EAACI advocacy manifesto). This enormous disease burden deserves to become a special focus for policy makers, the lay public, clinicians and researchers worldwide. Activities to tackle the allergy epidemic require funding by public agencies. Clinicians and researchers should disseminate their clinical and scientific knowledge not only to the scientific and clinical community, but they should also translate their finding into easily understandable language to inform the general public, politicians, administrations and potential donors. Moreover, adequate education of patients plays an important role in everyday clinical work to ensure full success of medical treatment, a time-consuming task that would benefit from high quality public engagement resources. Due to the increasing need for common knowledge in this field, public outreach activities are essential to provide information about complex immunological mechanisms underlying allergy and asthma in an easily understandable way to the lay public and allergic patients, as well as students, early researchers, clinicians and other health care professionals not specifically trained in immunology.

Chair: Eva Untersmayr
Secretary: Milena Sokolowska

Preschool children (ie, those aged 5 years or younger) with wheeze consume a disproportionately high amount of health-care resources compared with older children and adults with wheeze or asthma, representing a diagnostic challenge. Wheezing occurs commonly during infancy and in the preschool age. In vast majority of cases, episodes of wheezing are mild and transient and do not require intensive treatment. Nevertheless, some infants will develop persistent or recurrent wheezing, which becomes often severe. These infants are frequently referred to allergy specialists for further evaluation and treatment of asthma.
Several guidelines exist for diagnostic workup in older children with asthma, or address only limited range of issues and such EAACI recommendations are lacking for wheezing infants and preschoolers. To
address this knowledge gap and vast professional interest, we havestablished a committee of pediatricians, allergy specialists, and immunologists, with clinical and research experience in preschool wheezing as well as clinicians who are trained in systematic reviews to develop an evidence-based approach for the diagnostic evaluation and management of preschool wheezing.
This is a European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - sanctioned Task Force, which has identified clinical questions and controversies relevant to diagnosis and management wheezy preschoolers. It is conducted by WG on Infections with collaboration with Sections: Pediatrics and Immunology.

Chair: Wojciech Felezko
Secretary: Tuomas Jartto

Eicosanoids are a family of fatty acid metabolites that includes prostaglandins, leukotrienes and pro-resolving mediators such as lipoxins and newly-discovered maresins and protectins. Eicosanoids and enzymes involved in their metabolism have been long implicated in the pathogenesis of allergy and asthma but not well understood. Moreover, drugs targeting eicosanoids have been widely used for more than a century but our understanding of their activities and response prediction in asthma and allergic diseases is challenged by the complex nature of eicosanoid biology. Hence, in the era of –omics revolution and redefining and uncovering endotypes and theratypes of asthma and allergic diseases, it is important to identify current research needs
and opportunities regarding eicosanoid pathway. In this task force, we aim to conduct a comprehensive state of the art review on the role of eicosanoids in the pathogenesis of allergies and asthma and their potential as targets for prevention and therapy of allergic diseases.

Chair: Grzegorz Woszczek
Secretary: Milena Sokolowska

Therapies with biologics and immunosuppressives can cause side effects and lead to increased susceptibility to infections. In certain situations the abundance of information known about the drug requires a summary of the relevant information and in the event of an emergency to provide the ambulance personnel evidence of such a therapy. In an acute situation long prescribing information are not helpful, neither to the patients nor to the medical staff. Accordingly it is important that the patient takes a medical card with him (e.g. in the form of a credit card in the wallet), which concisely contains all relevant information which could be quickly found by the ambulance staff in case of a hospitalization or emergency situations. The patient card will be in English. Every patient will get a flyer in all languages.

Chair: Antonios Kolios
Secretary: Onur Boyman

Allergies require intensive care, which need new non-inavasive means of diagnosis. EAACI is aiming support allergy diagnosis at early stages to prevent the aggravation of diseases.

Chair: Carsten Schmidt-Weber
Secretary: Ralf Baumann

Section: Dermatology
Chair: Marcus Maurer
Secretary: Katrine Baumann

Relevant literature: 

- Baumann, K. et al. Position paper from the task force will be published very soon!!!

- Melgaard, L. et al. A review of experimental and clinical applications of reverse microdialysis in the skin

- Clough, JL. et al. What can microdialysis tell us about the temporal and spatial generation of cytokines in allergen-induced responses in human skin in vivo?

Section: Dermatology
Chair: Karoline Krause
Secretary: Margarida Goncalo

Relevant literature: 

- Kolkhir, P. et al. Treatment of urticarial vasculitis: A systematic review

There is a strong need to identify new management approaches for the prevention of atopic dermatitis (AD), due to its substantial burden on patients’ quality of life and health-care resources. In addition, AD is associated with higher risk of developing other atopic diseases. Increasing evidence suggests that skin barrier abnormalities play an essential role in initiation of early AD. The difficulties to target the underlying immune dysregulation, put forward the potential for early interventional approaches targeting skin repair. The aim of this task
force is to provide evidence on whether the daily use of topical treatments soon after birth (before the onset of AD) and for the first months of life could reduce the occurrence of AD and/or its severity, thus representing a low cost, easy to apply, safe and effective approach for the primary prevention of AD and atopic march, at least in some phenotypes.

Chair: Elena Galli
Secretary: Pasquale Comberiati

Chronic Urticaria in Children (CU-Kids) Task Force: we are establishing a research and clinical network for the optimal, evidence-based diagnosis and management of CU in children. This is taskforce is led by the paediatric section and clinicians who see children with CU. We comprise several relevant stakeholders from dermatology, allergy, primary care, research, immunology, epidemiology, pharmacology, biologicals prescribers, the junior section, patient representation and (through clinical networking, specialist nurses and a pharmacist). We have begun to:
identify clinical centres and colleagues who treat children with urticaria, including attendance at CU focus meetings nationally and internationally.

increase the expertise of participants for research and talks on CU in children, especially with regards to difficult to manage CU and the use of biologicals in the younger age groups:

several members of the taskforce are involved in clinical audit and service improvement work, and new research involving the medical and supportive management of children with CU across Europe

develop on the online survey of current clinical practice, needs and recommendations to formulate a report

plan an EAACI position paper on CU in children for the next taskforce application

Chair: Lauri-Ann Van der Poel
Secretary: Tabi Leslie

Interest Group: Drug Allergy
Chair: Maria Torres
Secretary: Knut Brockow

Relevant literature:

- Salan, M. et al. Diagnosis of immediate hypersensitivity reactions to radiocontrast media

- Brockow, K. et al. Skin testing in patients with hypersensitivity reactions to iodinated contract media - a European multicenter study

- Brockow, K. et al. Management of hypersensitivity reactions to iodinated contract media

Drug skin testing are often not carried out because of the lack of concise information on specific test concentration. The literature on skin testing for BA is poor and the majority of data regards anti-TNF agents. Additionally, both in vivo and in vitro tests are not standardized. Skin testing including skin prick test (SPT) and intradermal test (IDT) is relatively simple to perform and usually shows good specificity for most drugs. Unfortunately, the sensitivity of skin testing is generally low. IDT has a higher sensitivity than SPT but also a higher risk of inducing irritant reactions leading to false-positive results. Therefore
before advocating skin testing as a valid investigation method for HRs to BA, the non-irritant concentrations should be defined for each BA.

Chair: Andrea Matucci
Secretary: Alessandra Vultaggio

Interest Group: Drug Allergy
Chair: Sevim Bavbek
Secretary: Patrizia Bonadonna

Relevant literature:

- Özdemir S. et al. Analysis of the factors associated with diagnostic skin test positivity in immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions due to proton pump inhibitors

- Untersmayr E. Acid suppression therapy and allergic reactions

- DeMuth K. et al. Relationship between treatment with antacid medication and the prevalence of food allergy in children

Interest group: Drug Allergy
Chair: Mauro Pagani
Secretary: Sevim Bavbek

Relevant literature:

- Shepherd GM. Hypersensitivity reactions to chemotherapeutic drugs

- Castells MC. Hypersensitivity to antineoplastic agents

- Syrigou E. et al. Hypersensitivity reactions to antineoplastic agents: an overview

Betalactam antibiotics are, with NSAIDs, the most frequent drugs involved in hypersensitivity reactions all over the world at all age ranges. Furthermore, betalactams are the most frequent antibiotics prescribes in children . The aim of this TF is to produce a consensus document on hypersensitivity reactions to betalactams antibiotics in order to provide to allergist and other healt care profesionel guidelines for the evaluation and manegement of this reactions.

Chair: Jean Christoph Caubet
Secretary: Natalia Blanca Lopez

Fifteen years ago, a Task force of the ENDA (European Network for Drug Allergy), the core part of the EAACI drug allergy interest group published a paper on general considerations on drug provocation tests (DPT). Since 2003, a lot of studies have been published on DPT, considered the Gold Standard diagnostic procedure for determination of the culprit drug in patients with a suspected drug allergy. An update is urgently needed and more detailed recommendations are required in order to harmonize our methods across Europe. Specific areas such as risk stratification of patients, indications and contra-indications for DPT in adults and children, dosages of test preparations, number of doses and time intervals have to be discussed. Finally, since the  the value of desensitization procedures has been demonstrated during the last 10 years, the differences between DPT and desensitization procedures have to be analyzed and explained.

Chair: Annick Barbaud 
Secretary: Lene Heise Garvey

Review and collect the all data available in the literature (Pub Med, the Cochrane Library, Embase, National Institutes of Health ) about the incidence, pathogenesis, diagnosis and management of hypersensitivity reactions to AEDs in children.
-State recommendations on diagnosis and management, based on available evidences data and on panel consensus experts in the field of hypersensitivity reactions to AEDs in children

Chair: Marina Atanaskovic-Markovic
Secretary: Francesca Mori

Air quality has a detrimental effect on health and allergic diseases and the presence of pollen in the air has a significant impact on allergic symptoms. Being able to monitor the presence and quantities of pollen and fungal spores in the ambient air would considerably improve the prevention of allergic diseases. In order to do so, aerobiologists can use ambient air quality monitoring to detect biological particles (pollen and fungal spores) in the air. However, unlike the detection of non-biological components (ozone, nitrogen oxides, etc.), monitoring of biological particles in the ambient air is not frequently publicly funded and the data is not freely available. To address this important issue, this task force has made a review of the pollen monitoring stations throughout the world and created an interactive visualization of these stations (see below).

Interest group: Environmental and Occupational Allergy
Chair: Jeroen Buters
Secretary: Celia Antunes

Relevant literature: 

- Buters, JTM. et al. Pollen and spore monitoring in the world

Contributors:
Project managers: Celia Antunes, Jeroen Buters
Database building: Ana Galveias, Celia Antunes, Jose Oteros, Jeroen Buters
Interactive map development and administrator: Jose Oteros
Members of the task force: C. Antunes, M. Thibaudon, A. Galveias, J. Oteros, C. Galan, M. Werchan, and J. Buters

There is a growing number of publications on wheeze phenotypes and their association with several potential determinants of asthma, pathophysiological processes as well as with treatment efforts. It is established beyond doubt that wheeze and asthma describe heterogenous conditions. Heterogeneity is largely investigated in terms of time of onset, course, and association with potential biological pathways. What is less prominenty discussed are language issues which hinder patient-physician communication or cross-language comparison of research communication (e.g. publications) and/or guidelines. An ERS Task Force on “Respiratory Sounds” has built a reference collection of audiovisual recordings of lung sounds that should aid in the standardization of nomenclature (Pasterkamp et al. Eur Respi J 2016;47:724-732.). What has not been compiled, though, is an overview of the somewhat limited literature on how parents describe asthma symptoms in their children in different languages and how cross-cultural communication (including “professional cultures” (patient – physician) and cross-language communication) may influence understanding and correct interpretation of the symptoms being present.

Chair: Jon Genuneit
Secretary: Michael Levin

Reporting guidelines have been a tool for improving written scientific communication in form of published articles for almost two decades. The change in editorial leadership in two EAACI Journals marks a dynamic time for further improvement and professionalization of publications linked to EAACI. This TF builds on a successful Postgraduate Course on Reporting Guidelines held by te applicants during EAACI 2017 annual congress. We aim to determine the extent to which reporting guidelines are adhered to in articles published in EAACI Journals (Allergy, PAI, CTA). To this end, the objectives are to evaluate reports of observational studies against the STROBE statement. This will be done for 10 articles per Journal per year over the past 10 years from 2009 to 2018.

Chair: Jon Genuneit
Secretary: Michael Perkin

The field of occupational allergy studies the allergic diseases that are initiated or escalated by factors present in the workplace. Certain work environments have more propensity to exacerbate or lead to the development of allergic diseases depending on the agents one is exposed to. The gender distribution across professions is still unequal, and this raises a need to understand gender differences in occupational allergic diseases, to provide effective education and personalized management for both genders.
Chair: Gianna Moscato
Secretary: Monika Raulf

Relevant literature:

- Raulf M, et al. Gender-related aspects in occupational allergies - secondary publication and update

Upper and lower chronic airway diseases represent a significant burden worldwide and are thereby associated with a high cost for society. Disease control has been introduced for asthma (GINA), rhinitis (ARIA) and chronic rhinosinusitis (EPOS) as the way to assess patients’ symptoms. As such, the
level of disease control is guiding physicians in the disease management of their patients and included in all treatment algorithms. Different tools have been proposed and used in many clinical trials: Asthma Control Test (ACT), Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ), Visual Analogue Scale (for rhinitis
symptoms), 5 cardinal sinusitis symptoms (for chronic rhinosinusitis). Often these disease co-occur in the same patient. Thereby a uniform and easy system to assess disease control in these multi-morbid patients is strongly needed.

Chair: Peter Hellings
Secretary: Philippe Gevaert

CRS clinical diagnosis is based on positive patient history factors, symptoms, nasal endoscopy and if necessary,paranasal sinus imaging, usually by sinus computer tomography (CT) scans. The diagnosis of CRSwNP is confirmed by the presence of polyps in nasal endoscopy.The endoscsopic nasal polyp score is used is many Double blind placebo controlled trials as an important outcome. However, the interpretation is variable and therefore reading principles are urgently needed.There are several endoscopic nasal polyp scoring systems. They are based on the visualization of the extent and volume of nasal polyposis in nasal cavity where lower borders of middle and inferior turbinates are used as the main reference line. The Davos Nasal Polyp Score (0-4) is one of the most common scoring system in research and clinical practice. The Davos Nasal Polyp Score 0 = no polyps; 1=small polyps in the middle meatus not reaching below the inferior border of the middle turbinate; 2 = polyps reaching below the lower border of the middle turbinate; 3= large polyps reaching the lower border of the inferior turbinate or polyps medial to the middle turbinate; 4 = large polyps causing complete obstruction of the inferior nasal cavity.There is a high need to further develop endoscopic nasal polyp scores to a more comprehensive system in order to be able to use it in daily clinical practice and research of CRSwNP.

Chair: Philippe Gevaert
Secretary: Isam Alo

Allergic respiratory diseases have increased over the past decades and currently almost 30 % of the population suffers from allergic rhinitis. Rhinosinusitis with and without nasal polyps affects around 14 % of the population and the management and recommendations for these diseases are described in ARIA and EPOS guidelines. Although systemic corticosteroids are only recommended in the most severe cases of rhinitis and rhinosinutis; and solely in a short-term oral treatment scheme, depot-injections of corticosteroids or long-term oral corticosteroids are regularly used to treat allergic rhinitis or rhinosinusitis. However, it has been demonstrated that systemic corticosteroids only have a very short-term effect in nasal polyposis patients, in addition to a rebound tissue eosinophilia after withdrawal. Additionally, severe adverse events such as adrenal suppression, osteoporosis and diabetes due to systemic steroid use, have been reported previously. The aim of this task force is to discuss the disadvantages of long-term and repeated short-term courses of systemic steroids as a treatment strategy for upper airway disease, to summarize the proven benefits of systemic steroids in the different disease categories and to suggest alternative and better therapeutic options for these disease entities, such as e.g. immunotherapy.

Chair: Philippe Gevaert
Secretary: Valerie Hox

Interest group: Food Allergy
Chair: Isabel Skypala
Secretary: Joan Bartra

Relevant literature: 

- Skypala IJ. et al. Lipid transfer protein allergy in the United Kindgdom; characterisation and comparison with a matched Italian cohort

The EAACi task force called "Defining food categories in Eosinophilic Esophagitis" has the scope of putting together experts  from different countries to understand current practice in treating EoE and in particular how the diet is used Europe and outside Europe. The task force has put together a questionnaire that will be sent for validation to center of excellence in EoE treatment and once validated will be sent to all members of EAACi and AAAAI to understand current regional and individual management of EoE

Chair: Antonella Cianferoni
Secretary: Carina Venter

The “Exploring non-IgE mediated Allergy” (ENIGMA) Task Force in an established task force, that has been working on areas that have been poorly defined/explored in non-IgE mediated food allergies for the last 2 years. The ENIGMA task force is the only multidisciplinary EU-based group consisting of world-renowned allergist, gastroenterologist, dietitians and psychologist to take on the challenging task of trying to come up with practical (evidence based) guidance on diagnosis and management of this delayed food allergy. This Task Force has filled an essential gap in EAACI and also in the world allergy environment, where non-IgE mediated food allergy, outside of EoE (covered by a separate Task force) remains poorly understood and diagnosis and management guidance is limited.  The rational for this group has been to review current literature, produce guidance documents for clinical use and improve knowledge through teaching in this area. The group has already had a publication accepted on non-IgE mediated food allergies in breastfed children, which the ENIGMA Task Force hopes will lead to improving the diagnosis and management of this condition in breastfed children.

Chair: Rosan Meyer
Secretary: Carina Venter

Large variations in the prevalence of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is observed around the World. Reasons for these differences are still unclear. Our goal in this project is to verify these differences, and determine is they are secondary to environmental differences, or differences in physicians' practices and perceptions of the disease. To fulfill these goals, we are sending close-ended surveys to pediatric gastroenterologists practicing in Europe, the United States and Canada, and Latin America, through their respective societies. Information obtained from this project will be of paramount importance, since it will allow us to determine the scale of the problem in many regions of the World, and determine the types and amount of resources needed to address it. Other benefits include a better understanding of the etiology of EoE through the study of its various geographical and practice patterns.

Chair: Mirna Chehade 
Secretary: Jorge Amil Dias

This TF aims to provide recommendations for evaluating  and prescribing formulas for special needs in cow's milk allergic children

Chair: Antonella Muraro
Secretary: Rosan Meyer