As the patients faced treatment failures, phage therapy overcame the infection and resulted in complete recovery.
In medicine, you sometimes have to be daring. Two patients treated at the Hospices Civils de Lyon were able to benefit from a unique treatment: phage therapy. Thanks to this alternative to antibiotics, patients with very serious osteoarticular infections have been cured, reports the Lyon establishment on Wednesday, September 20.
These rare infections affecting a joint or bone usually develop after a prosthesis has been placed. They are also secondary to a fracture or an operation. Their treatment is very difficult because the antibiotics diffuse poorly into the joints or bones. Also, antibiotic therapy is often accompanied by surgery.
Personalized anti-infective treatment
But in the case of patients from Lyon, nothing helps. One is carrying a Pseudomonas aeruginosa multidrug-resistant and the other was infected with Staphylococcus aureus which give doctors a hard time and prevent good healing (see photo below).
A therapeutic failure that pushes the medical team to think outside the box. She then had the idea of using phages, viruses of bacteria. They live where bacteria thrive, especially in sewers. There are several billion billions of them on the planet and each strain of phage can only infect one strain of bacteria. It is therefore a tailor-made treatment for each patient.
Discovered in the 1920s by microbiologist Félix d’Hérelle, phages were thrown into oblivion with the arrival of antibiotics. Except in Eastern Europe, and in particular in Georgia. “Many patients in therapeutic failure go there to be treated by these famous phages and to avoid being amputated”, indicates the Civil Hospices of Lyon.
Launch of a clinical trial
But this therapy of the past is emerging from the closet, due to the rise of antibiotic resistance. It is also presented as a treatment of last resort in the case of osteoarticular infections. In combination with other treatments, the infection could be controlled in both patients.
“These positive results […] pave the way for other compassionate cases on bacteria that are difficult to treat and potentially resistant to common antibiotics such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli », Commented Guy-Charles Fanneau de La Horie, Chairman of the Management Board of Pherecydes Pharma, the laboratory which developed the treatment.
This is the first time that a phage therapy treatment has been prepared in France.
Convinced and enthusiastic about these results, the Lyon team even wants to launch clinical trials in patients with these infections. According to a study by the Institute for Public Health Surveillance, more than 28,450 people suffered from this type of infection in France in 2008.
.
