Antimicrobial Therapy in the Context of the Damage-Response Framework: the Prospect of Optimizing Therapy by Reducing Host Damage

Abstract

By design, antimicrobial agents act directly on microbial targets. These drugs aim to eliminate microbes and are remarkably effective against susceptible organisms. Nonetheless, some patients succumb to infectious diseases despite appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Today, with very few exceptions, physicians select antimicrobial therapy based on its activity against the targeted organism without consideration of how the regimen affects patients’ immune responses.