Bacteriophages

Question

Bacteriophages have been known since 1916, but have been pursued less especially in the West due to antibiotics. Due to PSA’s resistances, bacteriophages particularly isolated for the PSA of the patient, should gain importance for the patient.

My son (5 years old) has repeated PSA even after two years. He had iv therapy with Tobramycin and Meropenem, while inhaling with Tobi® alternating with Cholestin (four-week rotation). After subsequent treatment with Ciprofloxacin, he was PSA positive again and sensitive to Ciprofloxacin. Now he is getting Ciprofloxacin again.

Back to the question: is there any serious research on bacteriophages as opponents to PSA? The completely different mode of action would make one forget resistances to antibiotics. Who could provide information on this? Since the bacteriophage only has to be isolated, it is not suited for patent protection and therefore of little significance for the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, if there is any serious work being done on this at all, several years of gathering information on side effects and long-time experiences will certainly be necessary until a therapy could possibly be introduced.

Kind regards,
Kay

Answer

Hello,

the issue you are addressing here is very interesting! Due to the occurrence of multi-resistant germs, there have indeed been a number of research groups in the past few years that deal with therapy options for those germs. However, this research is still in its infancy and it will certainly still take a number of years until a treatment of affected persons is possible. So far, experience with phage therapy only extends to caterpillars and mice.

Regarding Pseudomonas colonization: If Psedomonas aeruginosa is detected for the first time, the germ is treated with a comprehensive antibiotics therapy in order to eradicate it as completely as possible. Unfortunately this is not always successful, so that repeated antibiotics therapies become necessary.

Regards,
Dr. Barbara Kahl

14.10.2009