Li Shuangquan1,
Wang Jianzhong1,
Liu Hongfeng2,
Li Gang1,
Shen Wenli1,
Gao Caiyun1,
Liu Yuanhui1,
Wu Chunqing1,
Zhao Xuelian3,
Han Zhonghou4 
For correspondence:- Han Zhonghou Email: vf1215@163.com Tel:+863353852145
Accepted: 26 August 2018 Published: 31 October 2018
Citation: Shuangquan L, Jianzhong W, Hongfeng L, Gang L, Wenli S, Caiyun G, et al. Combination of thymosin α1 with conventional therapy improves APC and IL-1R1 levels in children with severe pneumonia. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(10):2093-2099 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i9.29
© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Purpose: To investigate the effect of a combination of thymosin α1 with conventional regimen on APC and IL-1R1 levels in children with severe pneumonia, and to provide a reference for its clinical treatment.
Methods: A total of 96 children with severe pneumonia over a period of two years were divided into control and observation groups (48 cases per group) by random number table method. The patients consisted of 46 males and 50 females within the age range of 0.1 - 6 years (mean age = 3.0 ± 1.2 years), and mean duration of 13.4 ± 2.2 days). Their acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II) was 20.3 ± 3.2 points. Patients in the control group were placed on conventional treatment programs, while those in the observation group, in addition to the conventional treatments, received thymosin α1 (subcutaneous injection of thymosin α1 at a dose of 1.5 mg per injection) twice daily for the first 3 days, then once daily until the 7th day, after which the adverse reactions were observed and treated. Pulmonary function indices, and levels of APC, and IL-1R1 were also determined in the patients’ sera before and after the treatment regime.
Results: The clinical efficacy of the observation group was significantly better (p < 0.05) than that of control. There were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in the indices of pulmonary function (maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressure, and peak expiratory flow) between the two groups before treatment. However, after treatment they were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the observation group than in control. There were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in APC and IL-1R1 levels between the two groups before treatment, but after treatment, while the level of APC in the observation group was significantly increased (p < 0.05), the IL-1R1 level was significantly decreased (p < 0.05), when compared to the control group. Both groups showed no obvious adverse reactions during the treatment regime.
Conclusion: Combining thymosin α1 with routine treatment in the management of children with severe pneumonia can significantly alleviate the symptoms of patients, greatly stimulate recovery of pulmonary function, improve APC and IL-1R1 levels, and prevent inflammation.
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