Use of Bacteriophages in the Treatment of Infected Wounds in Patients who have Allergy to Antibiotics

Abstract

Background: In recent years, there has been a tendency of increasing of the number of antibiotic-resistant strains of microorgan-isms as causative agents of surgical wound infections, and increasing of the number of patients who have a multiple allergy to antibiotics. This significantly increases the duration and cost of treatment, and puts some questions on its efficiency. Aim of our research is to study how the bacteriophages act as agents to deal with purulent infection in the presence of allergy to antibiotics. Materials and Methods: We carried out a clinical examination and treatment of 68 patients with purulent-inflammatory soft tissue diseases treated in the Poltava Central District Clinical Hospital in the period from 2013 to 2015. The patient’s age ranged from 18 to 60 years. The patients were divided into three groups. The first group included 25 patients in whom the treatment was performed with the use of antibiotics. The second group included 22 patients in whom both antibiotics and bacteriophages were used in the complex treatment, and the third group - 21 patients who had been identified to have multiple allergy to antibiotics and instead of antibiotics, they were prescribed bacteriophages. We evaluated the following criteria: duration of the pain, local tissue edema, time of appearance of granulation and wound healing, measured leukocyte index of intoxication, microbiological markers of wound contamination. Results: In the analysis of the treatment of 68 patients found that the results of the 1st and 3rd groups did not differ statistically significantly, while the 2nd group of patients who used the bacteriophages and antibiotics, we found a significant reduction of terms in wound healing. Conclusions: The study shows that bacteriophages are effective agents for treatment of purulent infection and are an alternative in case of impossibility of the use of antibiotics. Cooperative use of bacteriophages and antibiotics leads to more effective treatment.