title: Phage Therapy: Combating Infections with Potential for Evolving from Merely a Treatment for Complications to Targeting Diseases.
abstract: Antimicrobial resistance is considered to be one of the greatest challenges of medicine and our civilization. Lack of progress in developing new anti-bacterial agents has greatly revived interest in using phage therapy to combat antibiotic-resistant infections. Although a number of clinical trials are underway and more are planned, the realistic perspective of registration of phage preparations and their entering the health market and significantly contributing to the current antimicrobial crisis is rather remote. Therefore, in addition to planning further clinical trials, our present approach of phage treatment carried out as experimental therapy (compassionate use) should be expanded to address the growing and urgent needs of increasing cohorts of patients for whom no alternative treatment is currently available. During the past 11 years of our phage therapy center's operation, we have obtained relevant clinical and laboratory data which not only confirm the safety of the therapy but also provide important information shedding more light on many aspects of the therapy, contributing to its optimization and allowing for construction of the most appropriate clinical trials. New data on phage biology and interactions with the immune system suggest that in the future phage therapy may evolve from dealing with complications to targeting diseases. However, further studies are necessary to confirm this promising trend.
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Department of Clinical Immunology, Transplantation Institute, The Medical University of Warsaw, WarsawPoland.
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Górski
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Department of Clinical Immunology, Transplantation Institute, The Medical University of Warsaw, WarsawPoland.
authors.forename: Ryszard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Międzybrodzki
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland.
authors.forename: Beata
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weber-Dąbrowska
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland.
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fortuna
authors.affiliation: Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Katowice School of Economics, KatowicePoland.
authors.forename: Sławomir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Letkiewicz
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland; Phage Therapy Unit, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, WroclawPoland.
authors.forename: Paweł
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rogóż
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wroclaw Poland.
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jończyk-Matysiak
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wroclaw Poland.
authors.forename: Krystyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dąbrowska
authors.affiliation: Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wroclaw Poland.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Majewska
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Immunology, Transplantation Institute, The Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw Poland.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Borysowski
keywords: anti-phage antibodies; antibiotic resistance; bacteriophage; compassionate use; inflammation; phage therapy; reactive oxygen species