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Cancer Research and Treatments · Journal article
mBio · July 30, 2026
A consensus or society position rather than new primary data.
This is a narrative review of phage therapy in clinical practice, summarizing the resurging interest driven by antibiotic resistance and difficult-to-treat infections. The authors acknowledge that rigorous clinical trial data remain sparse, and they highlight both promising indications and areas of uncertainty, while calling for better preclinical and clinical study design to advance the field.
Narrative review. Patients with bacterial infections resistant to conventional therapies or complicated by antimicrobial resistance.
Clinical trial data evaluating phage therapy impact are steadily increasing but remain sparse Case reports and case series show potential for phage therapy in antimicrobial resistance and difficult-to-treat bacterial infections Some infectious indications show strong potential for phage therapy; others lack clear evidence of benefit as currently practiced
Safety was not reported in the material analysed. Check the source before drawing any conclusion about harm.
Clinicians should recognize phage therapy as an emerging option for select resistant infections, but the evidence base remains preliminary and heterogeneous. Rigorous clinical trials are needed before broad adoption can be recommended.
A narrative review synthesizing existing clinical evidence and expert recommendations on phage therapy applications, potential, and research gaps rather than reporting original trial data.
As stated by the source record.
Clinicians should recognize phage therapy as an emerging option for select resistant infections, but the evidence base remains preliminary and heterogeneous. Rigorous clinical trials are needed before broad adoption can be recommended.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
What is missing. This record has no reported figures. That is a gap in the analysis, not a judgement about the study.
Bacteriophages (phages) are the viral predators of bacteria. Their ability to infect and kill bacterial strains has been harnessed for use in clinical practice for more than a century, but their development stalled for decades in many regions. Now, in the face of increasingly complex bacterial infections that fail conventional therapeutic options, and the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance, interest in phage therapy has resurged. Data evaluating the impact of phage therapy via clinical trials are steadily increasing, but remain sparse. Yet, an ever-growing number of case reports and case series highlights the potential of phage therapy to make a positive impact in the battle against antimicrobial resistance and difficult-to-treat bacterial infections. In this review, we summarize the available data describing the clinical utility of phage therapy, highlight infectious indications where phage therapy shows strong potential, and call attention to disease states where the benefits of phage therapy, as it is practiced today, are less certain. Furthermore, we note areas where there is a crucial need for additional research and propose how scientists and clinicians can work together to design and carry out the preclinical and clinical studies that will take phage therapy into its next century.
Taken from the source record, never inferred. Follow any of these and new work involving them reaches your briefing.