Introduction:

Oral tolerance is defined as the suppression of the immune response to antigens that have been previously administered orally. The purpose of inducing oral tolerance is to avoid using immunosuppressive drugs since, considering that they are not antigen-specific, they make the host more susceptible to acquire infections and develop neoplasms.

Objective:

To carry out a literature review on the most relevant theoretical references regarding oral tolerance induction in organ and tissue transplantation to prove that oral tolerance is a viable alternative therapy in transplant patients.

Materials and methods:

A literature review was conducted in the PubMed, MEDLINE, LILACS and Embase databases using the following search strategy: publication time: no limits; publication language: English and Spanish; type of studies: case-control studies, literature and systematic reviews; search terms: "T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory", "Autoimmunity", Immunosuppression", "Immune system" and "Immune Tolerance", and their equivalents in Spanish.

Results:

After the initial search was completed, 719 records were retrieved; however, only 99 addressed oral tolerance induction. Once duplicate records and articles without full-text access were removed, 75 studies were included for analysis.

Conclusions:

Oral administration of antigens is an effective way to induce immune tolerance in transplant patients (murine models) as it eliminates the adverse effects associated with immunosuppressive therapy, which currently is the standard therapy to treat these patients worldwide.

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