Prevention of infection[edit]
Alpha-Beta Technologies conducted a series of human clinical trials in the 1990s to evaluate the impact of β-glucan therapy for controlling infections in high-risk surgical patients.[9] In the initial trial, 34 patients were randomly (double-blind, placebo-controlled) assigned to treatment or placebo groups. Patients having received the PGG-glucan had significantly fewer infectious complications than the placebo group (1.4 infections per infected patient for PGG-glucan group vs. 3.4 infections per infected patient for the placebo group). Additional data from the clinical trial revealed intravenous antibiotic use was decreased, and stays in the intensive-care unit were shorter for the patients receiving PGG-glucan vs. patients receiving the placebo.