thymalfasin and Critical-Illness

To evaluate the preventive and therapeutic effect of thymosin alpha(1) on lung infections in critical patients with tracheotomy.. Forty-two patients were randomly divided into treatment group and control group to receive daily subcutaneous thymosin injection at 11.6 mg and saline of 2 ml for 7 days, respectively.. Compared with the control group, the infection rate, white blood cell count, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukiu-6 were significantly lower in the treatment group.. Thymosin alpha(1) can be effective for prevention and treatment of lung infections in critical patients with tracheotomy and may improve the patients' immunity and prognosis.

Topics: Adjuvants, Immunologic; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Brain Injuries; Cerebral Infarction; Critical Illness; Female; Humans; Intensive Care Units; Male; Middle Aged; Pneumonia; Thymalfasin; Thymosin; Tracheotomy

Thymosin α1 therapy was commonly used in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), while its impact on outcomes and which patients could benefit from thymosin α1 therapy were uncertain.. Patients with COVID-19 from 19 designated hospitals between January 1 to February 29, 2020 were included, and the main exposure of interest was administration of thymosin α1. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to account for baseline confounders, cluster analysis and Cox proportional hazard model was used to account for subgroup analysis.. A total of 771 patients were included, and 327/771 (42.4%) patients received thymosin α1 therapy. The 28-day mortality in thymosin group was significantly lower than that in control group (41.3% vs. 60.6%, p < 0.001). After PSM 522 patients were included in analysis and the 28-day mortality in thymosin α1 group and control group were 51.0% and 52.9% respectively, with no significant difference. In subgroup analyses, the association between thymosin α1 therapy and 28-day mortality appeared to be stronger among male patients (HR 0.673, 95% CI 0.454-0.998; p = 0.049). There were no benefits of thymosin α1 in 28-day mortality in other subgroups. There were two phenotypes after cluster analysis, but no benefits of thymosin α1 were shown in phenotype 1 (HR 0.823 95% CI 0.581-1.166; p = 0.273) and phenotype 2 (HR 1.148 95% CI 0.710-1.895; p = 0.442).. There was no association between use of thymosin α1 and decreased mortality in critically ill COVID-19 patients. Subgroups analysis and phenotype analysis also showed no differences on mortality after thymosin α1 therapy.

Topics: Adjuvants, Immunologic; Aged; COVID-19; COVID-19 Drug Treatment; Critical Illness; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Retrospective Studies; SARS-CoV-2; Survival Analysis; Thymalfasin