Hospital Pharmacist
2005;12:342
October 2005

News summary

Bacteriophages — the new antibiotics?

“With increasing resistance and so few antibiotics in development, we need to look at alternative options for the treatment of bacterial infections,” said Geoff Hanlon, professor of pharmaceutical microbiology at Brighton University. Speaking at the British Pharmaceutical Conference on 28 September, he suggested bacteriophages as a possible adjunct or alternative to antibiotics. He explained that bacteriophages are viruses that specifically kill one species of bacteria and that they have shown to be effective against 80-90 per cent of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and many other species of bacteria.

Professor Hanlon said that bacteriophages have many advantages over antibiotics, such as few side effects and no allergies. He explained that, unlike the development of new classes of antibiotics, they are cheap and easy to produce. He said that bacteriophages are effective against antibiotic-sensitive and antibiotic-resistant bacteria because they kill the bacterial cell by a different mechanism of action to antibiotics. He added: “They only kill harmful bacteria and therefore do not affect the natural bacterial flora.”

Professor Hanlon said that there are two types of bacteriophage — the lytic and the lysogenic phages. He stated: “The lytic phages are the useful ones as they cause no harm to the individual but the lysogenic phages have no therapeutic benefit because they can act as latent viruses.” Professor Hanlon said that bacteriophages have been recognised since 1896 when they were found to be the reason that the river Ganges had antibacterial properties. He said: “Several trials followed this finding but produced variable results due to factors such as the limited understanding of basic phage biology, use of inappropriate phages, poor manufacturing procedures and misdiagnosis of the patient”. He added that bacteriophages have been used widely in the military and are part of standard health care in Eastern Europe.

There are several new phage-based products already in existence such as PhageBioDerm which is a complex of bacteriophages and bacteriocides which acts as an artificial skin, developed in 1995. Professor Hanlon said: “More products that have been developed by various drug companies are awaiting approval before marketing can go ahead.”

Several other alternatives to antibiotic therapy that he suggested could be researched more thoroughly were essential oils (such as tea tree oil), copper and methods such as activated oxygen and ultra violet light.