Table 2.

Potential advantages of bacteriophage treatment over antibiotic treatment.

Characteristics features	Phage treatment	Antibiotics treatment	References
Specificity	Highly specific	Broad range of action	(37)
Effect on Normal flora	Minimal effect on normal flora with no dysbiosis and chances of developing secondary infections	Possess a broad spectrum of activities likely to affect microbial balance in patients and that are likely to generate severe secondary infections.	(38, 39)
Toxicity	Almost non-toxic	varying degrees of toxicity that range from mild to severe	(39–41)
Biofilm Penetration	Ability to penetrate effectively	cannot penetrate unless applied in large doses	(42–48)
Possibility of resistance	Reduced potential to induce bacterial resistance	High possibility of resistance	(39, 49–51)
Replication at the site of infection	Replicate at the infection site, making them accessible where they are most needed.	They do not always concentrate at the site of infection; instead, they are metabolized and excreted from the body.	(40, 50–52)
Adaptation to bacterial mutation	Can rapidly adapt to bacterial mutation	Unable to adjust to bacterial mutation	(40, 50)
Cross-resistance	Lack of cross-resistance to phages	Resistance mechanisms can also impact the effectiveness of various classes of antibiotics to a specific family of antibiotics.	(38, 39, 41, 50, 53, 54)
Dosage	Sometimes require multiple doses	Repeat doses are necessary	(40, 51)
Environment impact	Low impact on the environment	High environment impact	(40, 49, 55)
Effect on inflammatory responses	Possible effect on the inflammatory response	No effect on the inflammatory response	(56, 57)
Cycle of development	New phages (against phage-resistant bacteria) can rapidly be developed and be accomplished in days or weeks.	The long and expensive development cycle may take several years.	(55, 58)