Phage therapy review “as alternative treatment of bacterial infection”

Abstract

The rapid increase of multidrug-resistant bacteria around the world provides an opportunity to explore phage therapy as a replacement to antibiotic usage or a complementary treatment for some bacterial diseases. A number of clinical literatures have recently documented for the results of administering bacteriophages and phage cocktails to treat various infections. Although the phage therapy has given positive results, phage therapy has not been approved or used in the clinics. The variety of phage formulations, as well as the different routes of phage administration and treatment times, make it difficult to develop such systems. In particular, the different localizations of bacterial infections make it necessary to determine the best routes of administration and treatment regimens for phages. If bacteria grow resistant to phages, phages will naturally evolve to infect the resistant bacteria, reducing the possibilities of bacterial escape, which is still another advantage of the phage over antibiotics. Because of the diminished microcirculation and the production of microbial biofilms, which are typically diverse and antibiotic resistant, antibiotic treatment of infected ulcers is sometimes hampered by low antibacterial drug bioavailability. As a result, new treatments, either as an alternative to or in addition to antibiotic therapy, are necessary. The use of lytic bacteriophages as a therapy strategy is one of the options. A simple approach of bacteriophage treatment of diabetic foot ulcers is described here.