Effect of thymosin alpha 1 on advanced NSCLC immune function and bone marrow suppression

Objective To study the effect of thymosin alpha 1 on cellular immune function of patients with advanced non small cell lung cancer. Methods A total of 90 patients with advanced lung cancer patients whose ECOG score was 1~2 were assigned to experimental group and control group with 45 cases in each. The control group was given conventional treatment while the experimental group was treated with conventional chemotherapy and thymosin alpha 1, twice per week, a total of 4 weeks. The two groups were observed and compared immune function and bone marrow suppression changes after chemotherapy. Results The experimental group after treatment compared with the control group, natural killer cells (NK), CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+T cells were increased, CD8+ was decreased, the differences were statistically significant (t=2.12, 3.24, 3.02, 2.79, 3.76, P0.05). Each group with chemotherapy before and after had no statistical difference (the experimental group:t=0.86, 1.23, 1.36, 1.33, 1.40, the control group:t=0.89,1.21, 1.19, 1.13, 1.43, P0.05). Bone marrow suppression was significantly reduced (χ2=5.03, P0.05). Conclusions Thymosin alpha 1 can enhance cellular immune function of patients and reduce the risk of bone marrow depression with advanced lung cancer during chemotherapy.