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The Potential of Bacteriophage-Antibiotic Combination Therapy in Treating Infections with Multidrug-Resistant

Abdul-Halim Osman1, Fleischer C N Kotey1, Alex Odoom1

  • 1Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Ghana Medical School, Korle Bu, Accra P.O. Box KB 4236, Ghana.

Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland)
|August 26, 2023
PubMed

Insights

Antibiotic resistance is a major health threat. Combining antibiotics with bacteriophages (phages) shows promise for treating multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, offering a potential alternative therapy.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Drug Discovery

Background:

  • Antibiotic resistance poses a significant global health challenge, exacerbated by limited new antibiotic development.
  • Bacteriophage (phage) therapy, once a promising alternative, now faces its own resistance challenges.
  • Multidrug-resistant bacterial infections necessitate novel treatment strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the potential of combination therapies involving antibiotics and phages for treating multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.
  • To evaluate the efficacy of combining antibiotics with phages as an alternative to monotherapies.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing literature on antibiotic and phage therapies.
  • Analysis of outcomes from combination therapy studies.
  • Identification of synergistic interactions between antibiotics and phages.

Main Results:

  • Both antibiotic and phage monotherapies are susceptible to resistance development.
  • Combination therapies involving antibiotics and phages demonstrated positive outcomes in most cases.
  • Some combinations showed no significant benefit, highlighting the need for careful selection.

Conclusions:

  • Combination therapies, particularly those with synergistic activity between phages and antibiotics, hold significant promise for treating drug-resistant bacterial infections.
  • Further research into phage-antibiotic combinations and phage with other treatments like probiotics is warranted.
  • Exploring synergistic interactions is crucial for developing effective alternative treatments.
Keywords:
antibiotic resistancebacteriabacteriophageglobal healthmultidrugphageprobioticsynergistictherapy

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