Thomas Kalinoski's article review

Borysowski, J., Gorski, A. (2008). Is Phage Therapy Acceptable in the Immunocompromised Host?. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 12(5), 466-471. Retrieved from ScienceDirect database.

Borysowski and Gorski investigate the safety of using phage therapy in the treatment of infectious disease in immunocompromised patients. The study determines the safety of phage therapy by looking at the general mode of antibacterial activity of phages. They look at two mechanisms of therapeutic effect, either the direct killing of bacteria via the lytic cycle or inducing an antibiotic immune response in the body. If the latter case, then the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy would be significantly depressed in patients with immunodepression. The researchers investigated several scientific studies on phage therapy, particularly those comparing in vitro and in vivo studies on the effectiveness of phages in killing bacteria. In one study, only phages capable of lysing bacteria cells in vitro could cure infection in mice, while those inactive in vitro, but still able to cause an immune response, were also inactive in vivo. Another study looked at the use of functional vs. nonfunctional phages. Only the functional phages were able to clear an infection, while both could theoretically activate the immune system. The researchers discussed many other studies of similar nature, and concluded that the immunostimulatory effects of phage therapy in clearing an infection are negligible, and that phage therapy appears as an effective means of treating antibiotic-resistant infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. This article uses other research studies to support its conclusion that phage therapy is a safe and effective method for treating patients for bacterial infections who are immunosuppressed. The authors claim this article to be the first comprehensive article of the use of phage therapy on immunosuppressed individuals, and that it summarizes all of the available data from clinical and experimental studies.

This article does a good job in summarizing all of the available studies and using the information from those experiments to come to a conclusion about the treatment’s effectiveness and safety. This will be an important article in the development of a comprehensive research review article to give insight on the effectiveness of phage therapy. By demonstrating the effectiveness of phages to control infection in immunosuppressed individuals, the article will be a good candidate for a research review article that displays the overall effectiveness of this treatment.

This article can be used along with other articles to gain an overall picture of how effective phage therapy is in the laboratory trials and in clinical use. The article can contribute to the positive outlook on phage therapy; one which shows the potential for its success in medicine. This can be contrasted in the review article to any present research that might display the negative aspects of phage therapy. This article review won’t take a position against any view on phage therapy, but try to give an accurate overall picture of its potential without being biased towards the results of one article.

This article can also be used as background information for what is already known about phage therapy and its applications to medicine. This article combines the results of many different research articles, all with valid information that can be used to educate the reader of the research review article before going on to read the comprehensive reviews about each selected topic. The article sites many diverse sources that give recent information about the effectiveness of phage therapy on different types of infections and the use of a diverse type of phages. The article even gives information about a recent approval by the FDA to approve the use of a bacteriophage preparation against Listeria monocytogenes in food. The fact that this article presents recent information from large organizations and well-known scientific organizations gives merit to its argument and value to the information in the review article.

This article will be an important source for the review article. Although not yet determined where this paper will be placed in the review article, whether cited as background information in the introduction or reviewed as one of the selected sources, this article shares important information that can give the reader a well-developed overall picture of phage therapy.