A United States patient with leukemia has become the first woman and third person to be cured of HIV, this was made possible after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. The case of a middle-aged woman of mixed race, is the first involving umbilical cord blood, a recent approach that may avail the treatment to more people. Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months, without the need for antiretroviral therapy.
The sex and racial background of the new case mark a significant step forward in developing a cure for H.I.V., the researchers said.
“The fact that she’s mixed race, and that she’s a woman, that is really important scientifically and really important in terms of the community impact,” said Dr. Steven Deeks, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the work.
Infection with H.I.V. is thought to progress differently in women than in men, but while women account for more than half of H.I.V cases in the world, they make up only 11 percent of participants in cure trials. But Dr. Deeks said he did not see the new approach becoming commonplace. “These are stories of providing inspiration to the field and perhaps the road map,” he said.
"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.
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.
