Peanut allergy can be deadly, and it is estimated that some 250 million people across the globe are affect by the allergy, with the number more than trebling in the last 20 years, BBC News reports.

However, new long-term research being conducted at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, may have found a treatment.

In 2013, the institute conducted a trial which saw the child participants receive probiotic and peanut oral immunotherapy (PPOIT).

The research was led by Professor Mimi Tang, who pioneered the PPOIT treatment. The original randomised trial saw children given either a combination of the probiotic, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, with peanut protein in increasing amounts, or a placebo, once daily for 18 months. They were then tested to see if they had developed a tolerance to peanut.

At the end of the original trial, 82% of recipients were deemed tolerant to peanuts and went home eating peanut, MCRI noted. In comparison, less than 4% of those in the placebo group had developed a tolerance.

Four years later, they checked in on the participants and found that the majority (80%) of children who gained initial tolerance were still eating peanut as part of their normal diet and 70% had passed an additional challenge test confirming long-term tolerance to peanut.

The results of the four-year follow-up, which have been published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, are the strongest evidence to date that there could be a cure for peanut allergy.

The MCRI also noted that the findings hold important implications for attacking the food allergy epidemic.

Peanut allergy is the most common cause of anaphylaxis, which is a life-threatening allergic reaction, and it is one of the most common causes of death from food allergy.

Of those who had maintained tolerance, Professor Tang said: "These children had been eating peanut freely in their diet without having to follow any particular programme of peanut intake in the years after treatment was completed.

"Over half were consuming moderate to large amounts of peanut on a regular basis, others were only eating peanut infrequently. The importance of this finding is that these children were able to eat peanut like children who don't have peanut allergy and still maintain their tolerant state, protected against reactions to peanut."

She noted that the researchers had now started work to examine whether these beneficial effects of the novel treatment have also resulted in improved quality of life.

Professor Tang added: "These findings suggest our treatment is effective at inducing long-term tolerance, up to four years after completing treatment, and is safe.

"It also suggests the exciting possibility that tolerance is a realistic target for treating food allergy. This is a major step forward in identifying an effective treatment to address the food allergy problem in Western societies."

The follow-up study was initially funded by the MCRI and the Australian Food Allergy Foundation, but capital investment firm OneVentures also committed AUD15m in funding. The MCRI and OneVentures then jointly set up the biotech company Prota Therapeutics to develop PPOIT towards an FDA-approved product, with the aim of making the vital treatment available to people with peanut allergy across the globe.

Discussing the results, CEO of Prota Therapeutics, Dr Suzanna Lipe, said it was extremely promising that such a high proportion of subjects were remaining tolerant four years later, and that it would represent a paradigm shift in the way peanut allergy is managed if the findings are confirmed in a larger Phase III study.

Dr Lipe added: "Rather than using therapy that protects against accidental ingestion, Prota's products aim to provide sustained long-term effects and the ability to include peanut in the diet.

"For the first time, we could have products on the market that provide meaningful and long-lasting treatment benefits, which allow sufferers to eat peanut products without thinking about it, as part of a regular diet just like unaffected people.

"MCRI and Prota's success will be a major achievement on a global scale and making this vital treatment available is what drives the team to accelerate the development programme through the FDA approval process."