A study combining two drugs, ulinastatin and thymosin‑alpha‑1, showed that seriously ill sepsis patients had lower death rates, less inflammation, and spent fewer days on a ventilator compared to a placebo. However, these results come from hospital‑based trials on very sick patients, not from healthy or performance‑focused individuals.

This meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the efficacy of ulinastatin (UTI) and thymosin α1 (Tα1) based immunomodulatory strategy in sepsis patients. A systematic search was made of MEDLINE, Cochrane, ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS databases. Randomized clinical trials on treatment of sepsis with the combination of ulinastatin and Tα1, compared with placebo, were reviewed. Studies were pooled to relative risk (RR) and weighted mean differences (WMD), with 95% confidence interval (CI). Six trials (enrolling 915 participants) met the inclusion criteria. Compared with placebo, the combination of ulinastatin and Tα1 presented significant effects on 28-day all-cause mortality (RR 0.67; 95% CI 0.57 to 0.80), 90-day all-cause mortality (RR 0.75; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.93), TNF-α (WMD -73.86ng/L; 95% CI -91.00 to -56.73ng/L), IL-6 (WMD -55.04ng/L; 95% CI -61.22 to -48.85ng/L), and duration of mechanical ventilation (WMD -2.26days; 95% CI -2.79 to -1.73days). Immunomodulatory therapy that combines ulinastatin and Tα1 significantly improves all-cause mortality, inflammatory mediators and duration of mechanical ventilation in subjects with sepsis.