HIV: second patient is considered cured

Cambridge. It is only the second case in the world: the HIV patient referred to as the “London patient” is probably cured. A functional HIV virus was no longer detectable in the patient about two and a half years after the end of anti-HIV therapy, reports a group led by medical doctor Ravindra Gupta from the University of Cambridge (Great Britain) in the specialist journal “The Lancet HIV”. The patient, who had blood cancer in addition to HIV, had previously received a special stem cell donation. The researchers emphasize that stem cell therapy is a high-risk treatment that is out of the question for most HIV patients.

Stem cell transplantation as a cure for HIV

To date, a cure for AIDS is fundamentally not possible. With the help of antiretroviral drugs, however, the pathogen can be kept in check and the outbreak of AIDS can be prevented in the long term. In the “London patient” as well as in the “Berlin patient” Timothy Brown, who has been cured since 2011, the immune system was rebuilt through stem cell therapy. The stem cell donor had a rare mutation that made him immune to the HI virus. The result is that the cells do not form a CCR5 receptor, which most HI viruses need to dock to a cell in which they could multiply.

“Our results show that the success of stem cell transplantation as a cure for HIV, which was first reported in the Berlin patient nine years ago, can be repeated,” says Gupta. The Berlin patient also had some form of blood cancer.

Researchers: Virus disappeared from the body

Gupta’s team examined numerous fluid and tissue samples from the London patient. The scientists found parts of the genetic makeup of HI viruses in some samples. However, they assume that these are “fossil” strands of DNA that do not belong to a reproductive virus. Many other data, such as the sharp decline in the number of HIV-specific antibodies, indicated that the virus had disappeared from the patient’s body, the researchers write.

When does an HIV patient count as cured?

In a commentary, also in “The Lancet HIV”, Sharon Lewin and Jennifer Zerbato from the University of Melbourne (Australia) ask when an HIV patient can be considered cured. Medicine now knows that most viruses that survive anti-HIV therapy are defective and cannot multiply. “A cure for HIV could be better defined as‘ no intact virus ’than‘ no detectable virus ’,” the doctors write. The study by the team around Gupta was encouraging, but in the end time had to show whether a cure could actually be spoken of.

RND / dpa

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