About me
editI'm a medical physics graduate. My main interests are microbiology, host-microbiome interactions and their role in chronic inflammatory diseases. I am new to Wikipedia, and have just started my first article about lactobacillus vaccines, a "niche" and "obscure" therapy method in gynaecological infections that emerged from autovaccine development during the 1970s. Similarly to autologous vaccines, a concept from the early 20th century, lactobacillus vaccines have never gained widespread clinical use, partly due to their higher cost and partly due to their cumbersome administration route in comparison to oral antibiotics. I have tried my best to summarize in an encyclopedic way what I have gathered on this topic. I am not a native English speaker and my editing skills are that of a newcomer, so I rely on the community to help with developing this article. Thanks. :)
Although antibiotic therapy has historically been very successful in combating both uncomplicated and complicated UTI, many individuals suffer from chronically recurrent cystitis, requiring long-term antibiotic prophylaxis. Furthermore, the widespread use of antibiotics has led to accelerating antibiotic resistance and the emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) uropathogens. As early as 1957, Weyrauch and colleagues foresaw this problem in their discussion of the results of a UTI vaccine trial. In their study, they found that intramuscular injection with heat-killed E. coli was protective or partially protective against pyelonephritis in 12 of 16 rabbits. However, unvaccinated rabbits treated with prophylactic tetracycline were completely resistant to pyelonephritis, leading the authors to predict that prophylactic antibiotic treatment would remain the best strategy for preventing UTI in humans.
— Valerie P. O’Brien, Thomas J. Hannan, Hailyn V. Nielsen, and Scott J. Hultgren, "Drug and Vaccine Development for the Treatment and Prevention of Urinary Tract Infections", Microbiology Spectrum (2017)