FLICKR, ROBSON#Employing a treatment framework in which clinicians administer different drugs in strategic succession could both treat bacterial infections and select against the development of resistance, Technical University of Denmark’s Lejla Imamovic and Morten Sommer argue today (September 25) in Science Translational Medicine. This new framework, which the researchers call collateral sensitivity cycling, could also help curb unnecessary antibiotic use, which is known to contribute to the emergence of drug-resistant superbugs.
The idea of alternating antibiotics to both beat bacterial infections and outsmart pathogens on the path to acquiring resistance has circulated in the minds of microbiologists for decades, but clinical data to date have been unconvincing.
“Cycling—or rotating antibiotics—has been a hope for a number of years,” said Robert Weinstein of Rush University in Chicago, who was not involved in the work. The hope is to effectively “confuse the bacteria by changing the class of antibiotics you use every month,” he explained. “So they’re turning . . . to see which direction the antibiotic is coming from, and you hit them in the back of the head when they’re not looking.”
“The thought behind traditional drug cycling is that if you alternate between drugs, you ...
