Pros and cons of phage therapy

By C. Loc-Carrillo, S. Abedon. Bacteriophage, 2011

933 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Many publications list advantages and disadvantages associated with phage therapy, which is the use of bacterial viruses to combat populations of nuisance or pathogenic bacteria. The goal of this commentary is to discuss many of those issues in a single location. In terms of “Pros”, for example, phages can be bactericidal, can increase in number over the course of treatment, tend to only minimally disrupt normal flora, are equally effective against antibiotic-sensitive and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often are easily discovered, seem to be capable of disrupting bacterial biofilms, and can have low inherent toxicities. In addition to these assets, we consider aspects of phage therapy that can contribute to its safety, economics, or convenience, but in ways that are perhaps less essential to the phage potential to combat bacteria. For example, autonomous phage transfer between animals during veterinary application could provide convenience or economic advantages by decreasing the need for repeated phage application, but is not necessarily crucial to therapeutic success. We also consider possible disadvantages to phage use as antibacterial agents. These “Cons”, however, tend to be either relatively minor.

Subfields: Ecology, Epidemiology, Microbiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1337dcabc11c7d93ede1a8eb7b86fabaa5953aac

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In Ecology

1. F. G. Gordillo Altamirano
2. J. Barr
3. C. Loc-Carrillo
4. B. Chan
5. S. Abedon

In Microbiology

1. C. Loc-Carrillo
2. B. Chan
3. S. Abedon

Citations in the corpus

• Phage treatment of human infections (2011, background): “D’Hérelle also reported that some commercial preparations contained no detectable biologically active phage.26 In a year-long American Medical Association review of phage therapy, Eaton and Bayne-Jones14-16 thoroughly explored over 100 studies of therapeutic phage applications and raised many seriou”
• Antibiotic resistance and persistence—Implications for human health and treatment perspectives (2020, neutral): “Especially, Western countries are not familiar with phages and there is still hesitancy to use such biological entities in humans (Loc-Carrillo & Abedon, 2011). endolysins is their species specificity, avoiding selective pressure on commensal bacteria (Schmelcher et al , 2012).”
• Phage cocktails and the future of phage therapy. (2013, background): “Integrating phages & phage cocktails into clinical medicine The strengths of phages as therapeutic agents [22,50] include:”
• Phage Therapy in the Postantibiotic Era (2019, background): “A summary of these differences, and some similarities, between the two can be found in Table 1 (43, 44).”