- #Woman cured of hiv after stem cell transplant trial#
- #Woman cured of hiv after stem cell transplant free#
Instead, we should be focusing now on other research avenues, education, and strong public health efforts to reduce transmission of HIV. His stem cell donor carried a mutation of an HIV-related gene called CCR5. So while this new case of successful treatment of HIV with stem-cell replacement is exciting, it’s limitations of side effects and cost will make it unfeasible for most patients. Researchers treated his blood with a stem cell transplant for leukemia, but the treatment also cured his HIV. These individuals are not benefiting from our scientific discoveries and may continue to transmit the virus to others because their virus is not undetectable. “In reality, we must focus our attention and our money on the half of people living with HIV in the US who are not in routine care and who do not have suppressed virus. Melanie Thompson, a leading HIV researcher and clinician, puts this HIV research development in perspective: In December, Science and the Washington Post reported that fetal tissue research at NIH, which was looking for a cure for HIV, was abruptly halted. While these cases of long-term remission of HIV open new areas of research, another promising line of study has been closed. But donors were chosen, in part, to have this CCR5 mutation, which likely confers immunity. Depending on the site, 25-40% of patients will die in the first year following transplant.īoth the "Berlin" and "London" patients received the transplant as part of their cancer therapy, not specifically for their HIV.
host disease, which happens when the donor cells attack the recipient’s tissue.
"Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure," Lewin said.The transplants are also risky, with common complications being infection (often pneumonia), sepsis, bleeding, organ failure, and chronic graft vs. Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side effect called graft-versus-host disease, in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system played a role in a possible cure. The study suggests that an important element to the success is the transplantation of HIV-resistant cells. But the report "confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure," she said. Lewin said bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV. In February, a research team announced the first case of a woman and the first in a person of mixed race possibly being cured of the virus through a stem cell transplant. Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV.
#Woman cured of hiv after stem cell transplant trial#
Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells.ĭoctors then transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells.
It aims to follow 25 people with HIV who undergo a transplant with stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions. The International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial Network (IMPAACT) P1107 reported the first case of HIV cure in a woman living with HIV submitted to a dual stem cell transplant (i.e. The case is part of a larger U.S.-backed study led by Dr Yvonne Bryson of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV," Sharon Lewin, President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement. Post-transplant studies could no longer detect HIV by various sensitive assays. The two prior cases occurred in males - one white and one Latino - who had received adult stem cells, which are more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.
#Woman cured of hiv after stem cell transplant free#
Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukaemia - a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow - the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months, without the need for potent HIV treatments known as antiretroviral therapy. The case of a 64-year-old woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people.
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