Effects of compound Kushen injection on the immunologic function of patients after gastric cancer resection

Objective: To evaluate the effects of compound Kushen(Radix sophorae flavescentis) injection on the immunologic function of patients after gastric cancer resection.Methods: Forty patients after gastric cancer resection were randomly divided into two groups: 20 patients in control group were treated with routine chemotherapy including 5-fluorouridine(5-FU),calcium folinate(CF) and oxaliplatin,20 patients in experimental group were treated with the same chemotherapy regime combined with 20 mL/d compound Kushen injection during 1-5 days of chemotherapy.Flow cytometry was used to examine the numbers of T lymphocytes subsets(CD3~+,CD3~+CD4~+,CD3~+CD8~+) and the NK cells(CD16~+CD56~+) in blood samples.Results: In control group,the numbers of CD3~+, CD4~+ T cells,NK cells and CD4~+/CD8~+ ratio significantly declined than those before chemotherapy(P0.05)while CD8~+ T lymphocyte number was increased significantly.In experimental group,there were no significant(differences) between the numbers of CD3~+,CD4~+,CD8~+ T cells,NK cells,and CD4~+/CD8~+ ratio before and after(chemotherapy)(P0.05).After chemotherapy,the numbers of CD3~+,CD4~+ T cells,NK cells and CD4~+/CD8~+ ratio were higher in experimental group than in control group(P0.05),while the number of CD8~+ T lymphocyte was similar between two groups.Conclusion: Compound Kushen injection can improve the immunologic function of patients recei-ving chemotherapy after gastric cancer resection.