Lauran Neergaard, AP Having a bad reaction to penicillin as a
child doesn't guarantee you're still allergic decades later. And
if the oncologist says you have to switch chemotherapies because
of an allergic reaction, well, maybe not. More medical centers
are recommending a lesser known choice: Drug desensitization, a
carefully controlled method of helping patients temporarily
tolerate medications that their bodies once rejected. Not
everyone's a candidate. But for those who are, the process can
mean the difference between getting the best treatment or a
runner-up that may not do the job, says Dr. Mariana Castells, an
allergist at Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital who helped
pioneer the care. “You don't know how lucky I feel to have been
desensitized,” says Vanessa Greenleaf of Marblehead, MA.
Greenleaf developed a severe allergy to a mainstay of ovarian
cancer treatment, carboplatin. Even as a burning sensation
engulfed her body during the allergic attack, Greenleaf's chief
fear was that doctors at Mas