Imperfect drug penetration leads to spatial monotherapy and rapid evolution of multidrug resistance.

ABSTRACT: Infections with rapidly evolving pathogens are often treated using combinations of drugs with different mechanisms of action. One of the major goal of combination therapy is to reduce the risk of drug resistance emerging during a patient's treatment. Although this strategy generally has significant benefits over monotherapy, it may also select for multidrug-resistant strains, particularly during long-term treatment for chronic infections. Infections with these strains present an important clinical and public health problem. Complicating this issue, for many antimicrobial treatment regimes, individual drugs have imperfect penetration throughout the body, so there may be regions where only one drug reaches an effective concentration. Here we propose that mismatched drug coverage can greatly

SUBMITTER: Moreno-Gamez S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4460514 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature