Woman reported cured of HIV after Bone Marrow transplant

US: A US patient with leukemia has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday.

The case of a 64-year-old woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people.

Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia – 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 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. Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells. Doctors then transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells.

Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV.

Lewin said bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV. 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. – NDTV