Observation On The Therapeutic Effect Of Severe Community-acquired Pneumonia Treated With Lactoferrin

Objective: To observe the therapeutic effect of adding lactoferrin on the treatment of severe community-acquired pneumonia.Method:52 patients,with severe community-acquired pneumonia admitted to the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine,the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University from November 2017 to December 2018,participated in this study.They were randomly divided into 2 groups.The observation group including the patients who received oral lactoferrin 72.3 mg twice a day from the second day of hospitalization,while the patients without lactoferrin were the control group,with 26 cases in each group.Peripheral blood samples were taken from the subjects on the 1st,3rd,7th,and 14 th day of hospitalization to observe the white blood cells(WBC),the percentage of neutrophils(NEUT%),the absolute value of neutrophils(NEUT),and the percentage of lymphocytes(LYM%),lymphocyte absolute value(LYM),hemoglobin(Hb),albumin(ALB),prealbumin(PA),procalcitonin(PCT),C-reactive protein(CRP).Meanwhile,the clinical symptoms,imaging changes and adverse reactions were also observed.Results:There were no significant differences between the two groups in WBC,NEUT%,NEUT,LYM,Hb,ALB,PA,PCT and CRP.At the same time,there was no interaction between time and group,but the observation targets,such as WBC,NEUT%,NEUT,PCT,CRP decreases at a faster rate;Hb decreases at a slower rate;ALB and PA increase at a faster rate.No statistically significant difference existed in LYM between the two groups,but an interaction between time and group(P=0.044).We found that the observation group(Day 3)showed statistical differences earlier than the control group(Day 14)compared with the LYM% on the first day of hospitalization.Furthermore the observation group has a faster rate of increase in LYM% per unit time.In addition,there were no significant differences in clinical symptoms and imaging improvement between the two groups.Moreover,no adverse events associated with lactoferrin in the observation group occurred.Conclusions:1.Lactoferrin can accelerate the decline of WBC,NEUT,NEUT%,PCT and CRP in peripheral blood of patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia,and increase LYM% and LYM,as well as improve Hb,ALB and PA obviously.This is related to the presence of a certain degree of anti-inflammatory,immunoregulatory,and iron metabolism.2.Lactoferrin has no effect on ALT,AST,and Cre,and the influence on the symptoms such as fever,cough,phlegm is still unknown.