Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: thedoc on 15/11/2013 09:02:04

Title: How can persistent infections be treated?
Post by: thedoc on 15/11/2013 09:02:04

A recently-discovered antimicrobial can also combat chronic, deep-rooted infections previously regarded as resistant to treatment...

Read the whole story on our  website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/news/news/1000379/)

  

Title: Re: How can persistent infections be treated?
Post by: iko on 16/11/2013 10:54:08

Hi NSForum friends!

Yes, persistent infections can be treated with new antibiotics when the 'persistent bug' is tough...
but persistent, prolonged treatment with antibiotic cocktails can also help: eradication of Helicobacter pylori is a case in point.
These days antibiotic treatment for chronic lower back pain is a revolutionary issue.
Propionibacterium acne seems to be the offending agent that has to be 'eradicated' with extended antibiotic treatment (100days!).

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800704/pdf/kjpain-26-327.pdf

...if confirmed in future studies, a Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology is ready for those Danish scientists.

Title: Re: How can persistent infections be treated?
Post by: chris on 17/11/2013 12:35:39

Hi Iko

You're right to highlight long-term therapy as one option for clearing persistent infection.

BUT - this is unappealing for several reasons:

1) The more we use an antibiotic, the more resistance we're going to see developing; so longer courses of antimicrobial therapy are bad news from this perspective, because the agents end up in the environment where they select future generations of resistant bugs.

2) Long courses of high potency agents are very expensive.

For these reasons, short-duration, highly-targeted therapy is the way to go.