ReviewMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR2019
Pharmacologically Aware Phage Therapy: Pharmacodynamic and Pharmacokinetic Obstacles to Phage Antibacterial Action in Animal and Human Bodies.
Review in Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 119 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
119 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 204 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Precision phage therapy in the AI/ML era: a systematic review of discovery-to-clinical translation evidence.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Synergistic potential of probiotics and bacteriophages in combating multidrug-resistant microbial infections: A novel therapeutic strategy for the post-antibiotic era.New microbes and new infections · 2026Review
- Biofilm-Binding Phages Enhance Biofilm Eradication by Synergistic Photothermal and Photodynamic Therapy.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Comparative Study of Bacteriophage Pharmacokinetics by Different Enteral Administration Routes.Methods and protocols · 2026Article
- Isolation and therapeutic potential of phage vB_EcoM_GXW16 against a drug-resistant avian pathogenic Escherichia coli strain.Poultry science · 2026Article
- Immune Responses to Phage Therapy in Humans: A Review.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2026Review
- From hype to hope: reanimating phage therapy through evidence-based multidisciplinarity.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Isolation and characterisation of a novel Stenotrophomonas maltophilia phage vB_SmaS_BCU-1 with evaluation of mammalian cell safety.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2026Article
- Phage Therapy Beyond Static Pharmaceuticals: A Framework for Controlled Evolutionary Platforms.Viruses · 2026Review
- Therapeutic and immunomodulatory effects of phage therapy in red hybrid tilapia challenged with Klebsiella pneumoniae.Archives of microbiology · 2026Article
- Bacteriophage and Fusidic Acid Have Synergistic Effect Against Meticillin-Resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius in Ex Vivo Canine Dermis Model.Veterinary dermatology · 2026Article
- Bacteriophage Therapy AgainstAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Review
- Nano-Enabled Delivery of Phage-Based Antibacterials Against ESKAPE Pathogens.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Bacteriophage Therapy: Overcoming Antimicrobial Resistance Through Advanced Delivery Methods.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Addition of lactoferrin increases efficacy of three Kayviruses and limits the inflammatory response in pulmonary epithelial cells.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Whole-body distribution of threeAntimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2026Article
- Receptor identification and in vivo efficacy of a lytic phage vB_EcoStr-FJ63A against colistin-resistant Escherichia coli.Veterinary research · 2026Article
59 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The use of viruses infecting bacteria (bacteriophages or phages) to treat bacterial infections has been ongoing clinically for approximately 100 years. Despite that long history, the growing international crisis of resistance to standard antibiotics, abundant anecdotal evidence of efficacy, and one successful modern clinical trial of efficacy, this phage therapy is not yet a mainstream approach in medicine. One explanation for why phage therapy has not been subject to more widespread implementation is that phage therapy research, both preclinical and clinical, can be insufficiently pharmacologically aware. Consequently, here we consider the pharmacological obstacles to phage therapy effectiveness, with phages in phage therapy explicitly being considered to serve as drug equivalents. The study of pharmacology has traditionally been differentiated into pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic aspects. We therefore separately consider the difficulties that phages as virions can have in traveling through body compartments toward reaching their target bacteria (pharmacokinetics) and the difficulties that phages can have in exerting antibacterial activity once they have reached those bacteria (pharmacodynamics). The latter difficulties, at least in part, are functions of phage host range and bacterial resistance to phages. Given the apparently low toxicity of phages and the minimal side effects of phage therapy as practiced, phage therapy should be successful so long as phages can reach the targeted bacteria in sufficiently high numbers, adsorb, and then kill those bacteria. Greater awareness of what obstacles to this success generally or specifically can exist, as documented in this review, should aid in the further development of phage therapy toward wider use.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.