Phage Therapy as an alternative to Antibiotic Therapy against Urinary Tract Infections to Combat Antibiotic Resistance

Abstract

Urinary tract infection is the global health problem being 2nd most common bacterial infection. The abuse of antibiotics without bacterial characterization during its treatment results in emergence of highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Some biofilm forming bacterial strains are hard to treat using antibiotics. So, an alternative therapy is urgently needed. Phage therapy offers promising results for treatment of these infections in which virulent or lytic phages are used to lyse infection-causing bacterial cells. This review emphasizes several ways in which phage therapy can be carried out against uropathogenic bacteria. Clinical trials provide many positive results for phage therapy as compared to antibiotic therapy but a lot of in-vivo studies are still to be done to use this as potential treatment against UTIs.