Boy's Peanut Allergy Cured by Bone Marrow Transplant?

A bone marrow transplant is thought to have cured both the cancer and the peanut allergy of a 10-year-old boy, LiveScience reports. The boy, who was being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, remains both cancer- and peanut allergy-free, doctors said at a meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology today. He'd had the peanut allergy since he was 15 months old, according to US News & World Report. While several studies have found people developing new allergies after bone marrow and other transplant procedures, the opposite case is more rare.

But LiveScience mentions two others: In 2005, a 12-year-old boy also saw his peanut allergy cured after a bone marrow transplant, and in 1999, a 5-year-old boy had his latex allergy cured after getting transplant surgery for a bone marrow disorder. Doctors aren't recommending risky transplants to cure allergies, but they say these types of cases could offer clues to how such allergies develop and how to deal with them. (More peanut allergy stories.)