Allergy and Immunology

At Children’s National, children affected by allergies and complex immunologic disorders benefit from our specialists’ expertise, because our doctors treat children and only children with these conditions.

Children’s National is unique in offering this focused specialization, a specialty not always available in other pediatric medical centers. The team ensures greater access for children and teens to pediatric experts in asthma and allergies, as well as primary (inherited) and secondary (acquired) immune system disorders.

Conditions Treated

Our allergy and immunology teams work together because the ways in which these conditions impact the body’s systems are similar. Our immunology team is a national leader in treating and managing primary immunodeficiencies in infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. 

The team sees more than 1,500 children and teens annually with allergic disorders, including asthma, agammaglobulinemia, eczema atopic dermatitis, and hives. The team has expertise in food allergies, including IgE-mediated food allergy, gastrointestinal food allergy, and eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders.

Food allergies are a growing public health problem and affect up to 8 percent of U.S. children, says Linda Herbert, Ph.D., director of the Psychosocial Clinical Program at Children's National. Children can be allergic to a wide range of foods and exposure to just a small amount of a food allergen can be life-threatening. Click through our quick quiz to learn strategies parents can use to help tamp down their teen’s anxieties about food.

Division Services

For children with severe immunodeficiencies requiring hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, Children's National immunologists are also members of the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation who will direct care through both divisions.