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Phage therapy

Question
Dear ladies and gentlemen,

in the past, it has been written quite a few times about this topic, but as some time passed inbetween, I ask myself, if there are important findings. My husband (30, CF), has for about 10 years the germ Achromobacter xylosoxidans in the sputum. This germ did until now never cause great problems concerning inflammatory parameters or concerning decrease of the FEV1 value. Since 2 years, this has unfortunately changed. The germ is faught in regular time intervals of about 3 months with Imipenem/Cilastin i.v. This is then for about 4 weeks successful, but then, however, this germ occurs increasingly with intensification of symptoms.
This worries us a lot because of resistances. Many actual press releases report about the so-called phage therapy with bacteriophages. Howfar is reasearch concretely and is it now already possible in the single case to get such a therapy against a specific germ like AC in combination also with antibiotic therapy in accordance with the physician?
Many thanks!

Answer
Dear questioner,
we thank you for your patience while waiting for the answer on the question "phage therapy". In spite of this, we can unfortunately not give you a positive answer in your sense.
Due to the increasing resistance against antibiotics, research is focussing for many years also on other ways for fighting pathogenic germs. New perspectives especially concerning Pseudomonas and Burkholderia cepacia are indeed emerging in the field of phage therapy. However the search did not bring any results concerning phage therapy in case of Achromobacter xylosoxidans. Even if we reported already about the state of research concerning bacteriophages in 2009 on the expert advice platform, it can now also be said, that in spite of new findings and developments in this field, the investigation in the western world did not yet leave the laboratory state and this kind of therapy is until now not licensed for the usage in human beings.
Interesting questions with well-understandable answers on the topic "bacteriophages and phage therapy" you will also find on the internet page of the Leibniz-institute DSMZ - German collection of micororganisms and cell-cultures under:
https://www.dsmz.de/de/start/aktuelles/phagen-infoseite.html [German website]

Best regards,
Yours
Dr. med. Christina Smaczny
16.05.2015