TABLE 1.

Modern clinical or human experimental phage therapy (English-language literature)

Targets	Comment	Number treateda	Substantial efficacy	Authors	Year	Reference
Various	Various treatments	62	47%b	Łusiak-Szelachowska et al.	2017	142
S. aureus	Diabetic foot ulcers	9	100%	Fish et al.	2016	183
E. coli	Diarrhea	79	0%c	Sarker et al.	2016	114
S. aureus	Eye treatment	1	100%	Fadlallah et al.	2015	185
Various	Various treatments	>100	95%d	Kutateladze	2015	186
P. aeruginosa, S. aureus	Safety trial (topical dosing)	9	NAe	Rose et al.	2014	116
E. coli, Proteus	Safety trial (oral dosing)	15	NA	McCallin et al.	2013	91
Various	Various treatments	153	40%	Międzybrodzki et al.	2012	102
E. coli	Safety trial (oral dosing)	15	NA	Sarker et al.	2012	113
P. aeruginosa	Urinary tract infection	1	100%	Khawaldeh et al.	2011	188
P. aeruginosa, S. aureus	Cystic fibrosis patient	1	NAf	Kvachadze et al.	2011	189
NA	Cystic fibrosis patients	NA	NA	Kutateladze and Adamia	2010	144
E. faecalis	Chronic bacterial prostatitis	3	100%	Letkiewicz et al.	2009	190
E. coli, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus	Safety trial (topical dosing)	39	NAg	Rhoads et al.	2009	117
P. aeruginosa	Chronic otitis	12h	25%i	Wright et al.	2009	118
NA	Cystic fibrosis patient	1	NA	Kutateladze and Adamia	2008	137
S. aureus	Gastrointestinal colonization	1	100%	Leszczyński et al.	2008	191
S. aureus	Economics of methicillin-resistant S. aureus treatment	6	NA	Międzybrodzki et al.	2007	206
P. aeruginosa	Burn wound infection	1	100%	Marza et al.	2006	192
Staphylococcus spp.	Otitis media	1	0%j	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	2006	207
E. coli	Safety trial (oral dosing)	15	NA	Bruttin and Brüssow	2005	112
S. aureus	Radiation burn and PhagoBioDerm	2	100%	Jikia et al.	2005	193
S. aureus	Hand-washing experiment	NA	NA	O’Flaherty et al.	2005	68
Various	Septicemia	94	85%	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	2003	208
Various	Wounds, ulcerations, and PhagoBioDerm	96	70%	Markoishvili et al.	2002	194
S. aureus	Peripheral neutrophil functioning	37	73%	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	2002	209
Various	Infections of cancer patients	20	100%	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	2001	210
Various	Various treatments	1,307	96%	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	2000	187
Various	Chronic SBIk of skin	31	74%	Cisło et al.	1987	211
Various	Determination of neutralizing antibody	57	77%	Kucharewicz-Krukowska and Ślopek	1987	139
Various	SBI	550	85%l	Ślopek et al.	1987	181
Various	SBI	56	88%	Weber-Dąbrowska et al.	1987	182
Various	SBI	370	85%	Ślopek et al.	1985	178
Various	SBI in children	114	89%	Ślopek et al.	1985	179
Staphylococcus	SBI	254	85%	Ślopek et al.	1985	180
Various	SBI	150	81%	Ślopek et al.	1984	177
Various	SBI	138	88%	Ślopek et al.	1983	103
Various	SBI	184	88%	Ślopek et al.	1983	176
S. aureus (or other)	Treatment of hidradenitis suppurativa with Staphage Lysatem	8	75–100%n	Kress et al.	1981	212

^a Throughout this review, numbers treated refers to non-placebo-treated individuals for whom studies or treatments were completed.

^b Clinical improvement or better.

^c Relatively little effort in this trial appears to have been devoted to ensuring that sufficient numbers of phages of desired specificity would be present in the vicinity of target bacteria.

^d It is not obvious what types of cases this percentage refers to, e.g., both acute and chronic or just acute.

^e NA, either not available or not applicable.

^f Endpoints of treatment of cystic fibrosis patients are sufficiently ambiguous that “NA,” not applicable, has been assigned despite arguably positive results.

^g Phage choice in this trial was biased toward better phage in vitro characterization rather than toward ability to treat those strains of wound-infecting bacteria encountered.

^h Plus 12 placebo controls.

ⁱ Based on only single phage dosing in the course of a phase I/II clinical trial.

^j Phage therapy had some positive impact, but clearance did not occur until subsequent lactoferrin treatment was employed.

^k SBI, suppurative bacterial infections.

^l This publication is an overview of previously published Ślopek et al. articles; here and in these others, results indicated as “++++” or “+++” are counted as “substantial efficacy” versus merely positive results; typically, these are treatments of chronic bacterial infections that had already been subject to antibiotic therapy, and in some cases (about one-quarter) antibiotic treatment also coincided with phage treatment.

^m Staphylococcal phage lysate.

ⁿ This article is not necessarily looking at phage therapy in the sense of phages penetrating to and then directly killing target bacteria; i.e., efficacy instead may be a consequence of immune system stimulation. From the abstract: “Six of the 8 patients reported noticeable improvement in odor, consistency, and amount of drainage and considerable decreases in pain. Seven of the 8 patients reported improvement in the ability of lesions to drain spontaneously, and a decrease in the frequency of inflammatory nodules. All 8 patients reported that the inflammatory periods were definitely shorter.”