64-Year-Old American Woman Becomes The First Woman To Be Cured Of HIV By Bone Marrow Transplant
Medical advancements always surprise me. What one can do and all the diseases we have found cures for always takes me by a pleasant surprise. Hence, I was super interested to know more when I heard the news of an old woman with leukaemia who became the first woman and third person who has been cured of HIV after receiving a bone marrow transplant.
A 64-year-old mixed-race woman from the US has become the first woman and third person to have been cured of HIV by receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor who is naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. At the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver, the case of the 64-year-old woman was presented and is also the first one that involves umbilical cord blood which is a newer method that is approachable to more people.
The woman suffers from myeloid leukaemia which is a cancer that occurs in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. Since she received the cord blood, the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months without needing potent HIV treatments known as antiretroviral therapy.
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This case is a part of a larger study backed by the US. It is led by Dr Yvonne Bryson who is from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Dr Deborah Persaud who is from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It follows 25 patients who have HIV. they undergo a transplant wherein stem cells are taken from the umbilical cord blood for treatment of cancer and many other serious conditions. In the first trial, patients undergo chemotherapy to kill any cancerous immune cells. Doctors then proceed to transplant stem cells from those that have certain genetic mutations which lack the receptors used by the virus to infect cells. They believe that these individuals can then build immunity to HIV.
President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, Sharon Lewin said that bone marrow transplant might not be a viable option for everyone who has AIDS. however, she said that the reports, “confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure,” she reportedly added, “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.”
