NEW YORK – A leukemia patient from United States of America (USA) became the first woman and the third person to recover from HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who is naturally resistant to the causative virus AIDS.
Researchers reported Tuesday that the case of a 64-year-old mixed-race woman, presented at the Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections Conference in Denver, is also the first case involving cord blood. This is a new approach that could make treatment available to more people.
Since receiving cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia – a cancer that begins in the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow – the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months. He does not require the potent HIV treatment known as antiretroviral therapy.
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The two previous cases were in men – one white and one Latino – who had received adult stem cells, which are more commonly used in bone marrow transplants.
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“This is now the third report of a cure in this series, and the first on women living with HIV,” said Sharon Lewin, President -Elect of the International AIDS Society, in a statement.
The case is part of a large US-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. The study aimed to include 25 people exposed to HIV. They will undergo transplants with stem cells taken from cord blood for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions.
Patients in the first trial underwent chemotherapy to kill cancer immune cells. Doctors then perform stem cell transplants from individuals with certain genetic mutations in which they lack the receptors used by the virus to infect cells.
Scientists believe that these people then develop an immune system that is immune to HIV.
Lewin said a bone marrow transplant is not the right strategy for curing most people living with HIV. “But the report confirms that HIV cure is possible and further strengthens the use of gene therapy as a viable strategy for HIV cure,” he said.
This study shows that a critical element for success is the transplantation of HIV-resistant cells. Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side effect called graft-versus-host disease, in which the donor’s immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system, played a role in the possible cure.
“Taken together, these three cases of recovery after stem cell transplantation have all helped to uncover the various components of transplantation that are really key to healing,” he added.
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