The asthma and allergy doctors at The Asthma Center strive to provide the best allergy, asthma, immunology, and sinus care to patients using the latest diagnostic tools and treatment strategies. Our board-certified allergists are focused on fostering strong communication with patients and improving quality of life. We have decades of medical experience treating patients, and our allergists are recognized as Top Doctors and Super Doctors. Taking care of our patients is our top priority!
The founding allergists of The Asthma Center worked together at the Allergy & Immunology section of the Department ofMedicine and Pediatrics at Hahnemann University Medical College of Pennsylvanias School of Medicinein Center City, Philadelphia PA. After working at Hahnemann for several years, the team of allergists, nurses,and staff started The Asthma Center in 1990 to bring excellent asthma and allergy care to a larger adult and pediatric outpatient population. The group quickly expanded to several locations throughout metropolitan Philadelphia.
Since opening, the team at The Asthma Center has provided pollen, mold spore and ragweed counts for Philadelphia and the surrounding Delaware Valley region. Our current pollen collection site is operated in Center City Philadelphia. Using our expertiseabout local pollen, mold, and ragweed conditions and patient-specific medical evaluations, our in-house allergy extract labformulates individualized allergy treatments. We recently completed a multi-year project to addpulmonary function labs to each office, providing our patients with sophisticated onsite medicalevaluations at significantly reduced costs compared to offsite or hospital testing.
The asthma and allergy doctors at The Asthma Center strive to provide the best allergy, asthma, immunology, and sinus care to patients using the latest diagnostic tools and treatment strategies. Our allergists are focused on fostering strong communication with patients and improving quality of life. We have decades of medical experience treating patients, and our allergists are recognized as Top Doctors and Super Doctors. Taking care of you is our top priority!
The allergists and asthma specialists at The Asthma Center perform Drug Desensitization and Special Challenges to test allergies to specific medications. We have performed desensitizations or dry challenges on over 200 different drugs and our physicians are the Delaware Valleys most experienced experts with these types of drug procedures.
In order to desensitize an individual, The Asthma Center physicians can take the medication needed for treatment and dilute the medication to dilutions as low as 1:1,000,000 of the normal treatment concentration. The desensitization process is done by very slowly administering the medication at these extremely low doses which usually does not cause a reaction. Following each stage of incremental, increasing dose of administration, the individuals vital signs and general status are reviewed. If all is well then the next dose is administered. The desensitization process often takes a whole day to complete in order to get the patient to a tolerated therapeutic dosage.
The Asthma Center is well equipped to handle reactions to this process which may occasionally occur. There are some medications where skin testing to the drug or its components is highly accurate and predictive of current sensitivity or not. This is true of penicillin. With most drugs, the sensitivity of skin testing is less reliable and a challenge to the drug using two sequential doses can prove tolerance or the more lengthy desensitization is done when there is a high probability the individual may still be reactive to a particular drug.