Since I read about this on some articles, I can't stop asking myself why such techniques are not widely used in Western Europa Countries?
It seems that it is very efficient in Eastern countries where it's more used as alternative to antibiotics.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23156390_Phage_therapy_experience_at_the_Eliava_Institute
I'm very interested in this subject and would like to share some knowledges about it.
Cheers, Thank you.
Article Phage therapy experience at the Eliava Institute
Yeah, phage therapy has always been something I find really interesting as well. I think the issues with phage therapy are that they have much more lytic in vitro activity than they do in vivo (Adams MH. Bacteriophages. New York: Interscience Publishers Inc.,1959: 1-12);coupled with the fact that antimicrobials were developing rapidly around the same time meant that phage therapies were just not as effective as antimicrobial treatments available, and poor knowledge of drug resistance and thus the need for a viable alternative treatment to alleviate the emergence of this drug resistance was not recognised. Why it was more focused in Soviet/Eastern European countries is debatable- I think that scientific approaches varied drastically between the West and East such as testing on animals as was trialed in the U.S., focusing more on human patients as was done in Eastern Europe, reporting data, validity of research, etc. Anyway, this is a nice review article that details a lot of the nuances between East and West and phage therapies, even if it is a bit dated.
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0163445398928742/1-s2.0-S0163445398928742-main.pdf?_tid=a24808d4-629e-11e5-bec1-00000aab0f26&acdnat=1443087097_4216d84ac5071a6f927b7222d0ef8f90
Hi, I have not looked at it closely, but I can think of a few reasons why adoption is slow. 1. stringent safety/regulatory for the complex biological products, such as phage. 2. systemic effects probably hard to achieve. 3. Should be coupled with excellent diagnostics. Also, I understand that resistance to particular phage can arise quickly.
Thank you bot for your answers, I think it's a great topic and i will definitively search more informations on the subject.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Entomology
- Resistance