Analysis of the clinical effects of thymosin ?1 on gastrointestinal carcinoma in elderly patients / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe and evaluate the clinical effects of thymosin ?1 on gastrointestinal carcinoma in elderly patients.Methods Ninety-six aged patients with gastrointestinal carcinoma in the General Hospital of PLA,who had received chemotherapy,were randomly divided into two groups(n=48 for each group) control group and treatment group.Patients in the treatment group received thymosin ?1 by subcutaneous injection in a dose of 1.6mg,the treatment was given once every other day and the whole course lasted for 8 weeks;while patients in the control group received physiological saline solution in the same amount only instead of thymosin.For the patients in both groups,the activities of peripheral blood T cell subsets,such as CD4+,CD4+/CD8+ and natural killer(NK),were measured by flow cytometry before the treatment and in the 2nd,4th,8th week of chemotherapy.The life quality of every patient was evaluated by Karnofsky scores at the same time.Results After the treatment,the Karnofsky scores in the treatment group were much higher than that in the control group(P