Asia Pacific Allergy as the Emerging Sources Citation Index Journal

Recent Asia Pacific Association of Allergy, Asthma, and Clinical Immunology (APAAACI) 2021 International Conference (October 15–17, 2021) has been an outstanding success with a great array of cutting-edge scientific and clinical sessions by global and regional leaders, the junior member symposium, e-posters, and oral presentations. The conference led by the conference chair and the president of APAAACI, Prof. Ruby Pawankar, and the conference cochair and the president-elect of APAAACI, Prof. Jiu-Yao Wang, was attended by over 3,000 delegates from 54 countries. The opening ceremony was remarkable with congratulatory remarks from the legends in our region. It was an important milestone for APAAACI. Hope to see you in person at the next meeting, APAAACI Congress 2022 (October 1–4, 2022) in Manila, the Philippines.

As the Editor-in-Chief, I am glad to inform that Asia Pacific Allergy, the official journal of APAAACI, has been indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) this year, an important milestone for the journal and a step forward to be indexed as a SCIE journal. It is a great honor and responsibility for me to take care of Asia Pacific Allergy that I started with Prof. Sang-Il Lee as the founding editors in 2010. I deeply appreciate all the contributors, authors, reviewers, readers, the editorial board members of Asia Pacific Allergy, the leadership of APAAACI and partners. As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is still going on, there are problems in review process for some submitted manuscripts. I apologize for the delayed processes. The Asia Pacific Allergy team is doing the best to try to catch up the delayed review process. As an ESCI indexed journal, Asia Pacific Allergy will do the best to present your nice research works to the world. Thank you very much for your support on Asia Pacific Allergy.

In this issue, readers will find a very nice review article on chronic cough with the disease burden, regional issues in Asia Pacific, and recent findings [1]. Chronic cough is a very important issue for allergists as the major causes are related with allergic diseases such as asthma, upper airway cough syndrome, and eosinophilic bronchitis. Antitussives are not usually effective without treating the underlying causes of chronic cough. It is always important to find and treat the underlying causes for the successful treatment of chronic cough. Chronic cough significantly impacts the quality of life of the patients especially in the era of COVID-19 pandemic.

Skin testing for COVID-19 vaccines and their components is now of great interest. Potential allergens have been proposed as polyethylene glycol in mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, tromethamine (or trometamol) in Moderna vaccine, and polysorbate 80 in other vaccines such as Oxford/AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccines [2,3]. In many countries, skin testing for COVID-19 vaccines or their components are performed to reduce the risk of severe allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis and to find a safe alternative vaccine although there are limited data on the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value yet. In this issue, Vu et al. [4] shares the experience of skin testing for COVID-19 vaccines and their components from Vietnam.

It has been 110 years since Noon’s first clinical report of subcutaneous allergen immunotherapy, a historical milestone in allergy. It is a unique and important treatment modality to induce immune tolerance in allergic diseases. Currently subcutaneous and sublingual immunotherapy are widely used in practice. Allergen immunotherapy is still evolving to improve the clinical efficacy, safety, and convenience. Readers will find interesting articles about the effect of allergen immunotherapy on eosinophilic inflammation in asthma and rhinitis, on pollen-food allergy syndrome, and a case of eosinophilic esophagitis by sublingual immunotherapy [5,6,7].

Food allergy is increasing globally, and has been referred as the “second wave” of the allergic epidemic, following asthma [8]. Egg allergy is one of the most common food allergies in young children. Although there are several reports that half of children of egg allergy may tolerate egg by 4–12 years of age, there is a lack of studies on the natural history of egg allergy and the risk factors for persistent egg allergy. Readers will find an interesting article on the natural history of egg allergy in Chinese children and the risk factors that might predict the persistence of egg allergy from Hong Kong [9].

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory cutaneous allergic disease which is a major public health concern with increased prevalence. The diagnosis and assessment of disease severity on atopic dermatitis mostly depends on the physician’s visual examination and there is no reliable biomarker on the disease severity. In this issue, Hirayama et al. [10] suggests squamous cell carcinoma antigens (SCCAs), especially SCCA2, as the possible biomarkers for the severity of atopic dermatitis from 576 subjects.

Adolescence is a critical time period in life with rapid physical and psychosocial changes. The responsibilities of caring for diseases such as asthma are gradually transferred from the parents to the adolescent. There could be many problems and issues in the management of adolescent asthma. Chong-Fah-Shen et al. [11] reports on the physician’s experience on the managing asthma in adolescents using an international survey from 46 countries.

Drug desensitization is an important area that allergists can greatly contribute for the treatment of patients with various drug allergy. In this issue, Kakleas et al. [12] reports on the successful desensitization to high dose rituximab for a child with nephrotic syndrome.