Bacteriophage Therapy for Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii: A Novel Approach for Treating Drug-Resistant Infections

Abstract

The emergence of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) has become a major health issue which requires new treatment methods because standard antibiotics stop working effectively. CRAB continues to multiply in hospital settings while evading multiple antibiotics which results in elevated patient mortality numbers. This review evaluates whether employing select virus agents that specifically destroy bacterial cells for bacteriophage therapy provides an effective defense against CRAB. Bacteriophages develop alongside bacterial mutant populations to neutralize the protective mechanisms that CRAB uses for resistance. The authors merge data from multiple in vitro and in vivo experiments which include studies on both individual phages and multi-phage treatments together with phage-antibiotic combination tests. The study results show that bacteriophage therapy possesses both beneficial security characteristics and excellent outcomes in the treatment of CRAB infections. CRAB strains which develop phage-resistant characteristics tend to reduce their pathogenicity levels until they recover their sensitivity to antibiotics that were previously ineffective.