Division of Pulmonology and Critical Illness, Department of Internal Medicine, Padjadjaran University, Bandung, West Java, 45363, Indonesia.
Faculty of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Pelita Harapan University, Karawaci, Tangerang, 15811, Indonesia.
Inflammopharmacology. 2023 Dec;31(6):3317-3325. doi: 10.1007/s10787-023-01354-2. Epub 2023 Oct 16.
Effort to search for the optimal COVID-19 treatment has continuously been attempted. Thymosin alpha-1 have immunomodulatory properties which may be beneficial in case of viral infection. This study's goal is to determine whether thymosin alpha-1 is effective in treating people with moderate-to-severe COVID-19.
We searched for literature in 4 database: Scopus, Europe PMC, Medline, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Cochrane Library until March 25th, 2023. If those articles have data on the efficacy of thymosin alpha-1 therapy on COVID-19, they would be included. Risk ratio (RR) and Mean Difference (MD) along with their 95% confidence intervals were used to pool the results of dichotomous and continuous variables, respectively.
Pooled data from 8 studies indicated that moderate to critical Covid-19 patients who were receiving thymosin alpha-1 therapy had significantly lower mortality from COVID-19 (RR 0.59; 95% CI 0.37-0.93, p = 0.02, I = 84%), but without any difference in the needs for mechanical ventilation (RR 0.83; 95% CI 0.48-1.44, p = 0.51, I = 74%) and hospital length of stay (MD 2.32; 95% CI - 0.93, 5.58, p = 0.16, I = 94%) compared to placebo. The benefits of thymosin alpha-1 on the mortality rate were significantly affected only by sample size (p = 0.0000) and sex (p = 0.0117).
Our study suggests that treatment with thymosin alpha-1 may reduce mortality rate in moderate to critical COVID-19 patients. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are still required to verify the findings of our study.
人们一直在努力寻找治疗 COVID-19 的最佳方法。胸腺肽 alpha-1 具有免疫调节特性，可能对病毒感染有益。本研究旨在确定胸腺肽 alpha-1 治疗中重度 COVID-19 患者是否有效。
我们在 Scopus、Europe PMC、Medline、ClinicalTrials.gov 和 Cochrane Library 这 4 个数据库中检索文献，检索时间截至 2023 年 3 月 25 日。如果这些文章有关于胸腺肽 alpha-1 治疗 COVID-19 的疗效数据，我们将其纳入。使用风险比（RR）和均数差（MD）来汇总二分类和连续性变量的结果。
纳入的 8 项研究的汇总数据表明，接受胸腺肽 alpha-1 治疗的中重度新冠患者的 COVID-19 死亡率显著降低（RR 0.59；95%CI 0.37-0.93，p=0.02，I=84%），但在机械通气需求（RR 0.83；95%CI 0.48-1.44，p=0.51，I=74%）和住院时间（MD 2.32；95%CI -0.93，5.58，p=0.16，I=94%）方面与安慰剂相比无差异。胸腺肽 alpha-1 对死亡率的益处仅受到样本量（p=0.0000）和性别（p=0.0117）的显著影响。
本研究表明，胸腺肽 alpha-1 治疗可能降低中重度 COVID-19 患者的死亡率。仍需要进行随机临床试验（RCT）来验证本研究的结果。
