["Control of symbiosis" or "microbiological therapy"--an immunological therapy principle?]

"Flora modulation" or "microbiologic therapy"-- an immunologic method of treatment? "Microbiologic therapy" includes the methods of quantitative measurement of the intestinal "microbial flora", the oral or parenteral application of microbial pharmaceutics and the preparation of autovaccines from excretions of the treated persons. Initially a "flora modulation" was supposed to be the mechanism of "microbiologic therapy". After the failure of this hypothesis, some physicians claim the "microbiologic therapy" to be a special form of immunomodulation or -stimulation. Most influential in this immunologic foundation of "microbiologic therapy" was the "Institut für Mikroökologie" in Herborn, Germany. A detailed analysis of the available publications however reveals, that all methods of "microbiological therapy" are based on theoretically untenable presumptions. Furthermore, up to now there is no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of this form of therapy.