Adaptive Phage Therapy in the Treatment of Patients with Recurrent Pneumonia (Pilot Study)

Aim. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of the adaptive phage therapy technique in patients with recurrent pneumonia in neurological critical care.
Material and methods. The clinical study included 83 chronically critically ill patients with severe brain damage. The bacteriophage cocktail selected against specific hospital strains was administered by inhalation to 43 patients. The control group included 40 patients who received conventional antimicrobial therapy. The changes in clinical, laboratory and instrumental parameters, levels of biomarkers, microbiological and PCR tests of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were assessed, including those in the «phage therapy with antibiotics» (n=29) and «phage therapy without antibiotics» (n=14) subgroups.
Results. The groups were comparable in terms of basic parameters (age, sex, diagnosis, organ dysfunction according to APACHE II, use of vasoactive drugs) and the level of airway colonization with antibioticresistant bacterial strains. Good tolerability and absence of clinically significant side effects were observed during inhaled administration of the bacteriophage cocktail. Computed tomography on day 21 showed a significant reduction in lung damage in patients who received bacteriophages. Patients treated with bacteriophages without antibiotics had significantly lower need for mechanical ventilation. The mortality rate on day 28 did not differ significantly and was 4.7% (2/43) in the bacteriophage-treated group vs 5% (2/40) in the control group.
Conclusion. The first experience of using the adaptive phage therapy technique in chronically critically ill patients in neurological intensive care demonstrated the safety of inhalational administration of the bacteriophage cocktail. The efficacy of the technique was confirmed by the treatment results obtained in the phage therapy group, which were not inferior to those in the group with conventional antibiotic therapy, while several clinical and laboratory parameters tended to improve even in patients who received bacteriophages and did not receive antibiotics.

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