Lack of new antiinfective agents: Passing into the pre-antibiotic age?

Core Tip

Core tip: The dramatic increase in multiresistance of relevant pathogenic bacteria can be assumed to be one of the main global health care problems of the 21^st century. At the same time, the development of new antibiotics decreases considerably from which a significant lack in the health supply for combating infections can be scheduled. In this paper, alternative strategies are discussed which are focused mainly on the development and application of antimicrobial peptides. These can easily be synthesized in high amounts under moderate costs, have usually a high therapeutic index, and do not have a tendency for resistance emergence. Recent developments are presented from which it may be deduced that the most serious form of a bacterial infection, sepsis and septic shock, may be treatable in near future.