Compassionate-use phage therapy in 20 patients with drug-resistant mycobacterial disease

A Clinical Infectious Diseases case series screened Mycobacterium isolates from 200 patients for phage susceptibility and gave phages intravenously, by aerosolization or both to 20 patients on a compassionate-use basis. No adverse reactions were attributed to therapy, favorable clinical or microbiological responses were seen in 11 patients, and no phage resistance emerged in the 11 patients treated with a single phage.