The Effect of House Dust Mite Immunotherapy, Probiotic and Nigella sativa in The Number of Th17 Cell and Asthma Control Test Score

Abstract

The Role of Th17 cells in the pathogenesis of asthma and immunotherapy is being a new concept and paradigm. Immunotherapy on asthma requires long periods of time, so administration of an adjuvant had been considered to improve its efficacy. The aims of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of immunotherapy combined with probiotics and Nigella sativa in the number of Th17 cells and the improvement of clinical symptoms of asthma. A total of 31 children with mild asthma were evaluated and then randomized to receive immunotherapy or immunotherapy plus Nigella sativa or immunotherapy plus probiotic or immunotherapy plus Nigella sativa plus probiotic openly for 14 weeks. Statistical analysis found no significant difference in the mean number of Th17 cells pre and post test in all four treatment groups, however we found a significant differences asthma control test (ACT) score before and after the immunotherapy + Nigella sativa treatment (p = 0.001), before and after immunotherapy + probiotic treatment (p = 0.004), as well as before and after immunotherapy plus Nigella sativa plus probiotic treatment (p = 0.000). Correlation test found a significant association between the number of Th17 cells and ACT score in all groups. The combination immunotherapy with Nigella sativa and probiotics did not reduce the number of peripheral blood Th17 cells mild asthmatic children, but can improve the clinical symptom.