Effect of tolerance on the evolution of antibiotic resistance under drug combinations

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Effect of tolerance on the evolution of antibiotic resistance under drug combinations

The impact of increasing antibiotic resistance seems devastating. With passing time, the profile of resistant strains is increasing and seems never ending. The situation becomes worse when these resistant bacteria act as secondary infection to hospitalized patients, immunocompromised patients and so on. Thus a need for a better treatment option to cure or tackle these resistant infections is the need of the hour. One of the options is development of newer drugs which is not at all cost effective and is time consuming. Another option which is gaining attention is use of combination drugs.

Drug combinations are widely used in clinical practice to prevent the evolution of resistance. However, there are multiple drug-resistant strains with different profiling patterns and little is known about the effect of tolerance. A study conducted in Israel found that the use of combination drugs without checking the resistance profile of bacteria can further result in the emergence of resistance. It was found that the clinical strains of S. aureus showed increased tolerance and promoted the evolution of resistance under combination treatments. Therefore it is recommended that before using any drug combination, the resistance profile of bacterium must be determined.

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