A female patient with leukemia has become the third person and first woman to recover from HIV after a successful stem cell transplant, according to US researchers.
The middle-aged women received stem cell transplants from a donor with natural immunity to the virus that leads to AIDS, as presented at the Denver Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infect.
Umbilical cord blood was used in the procedure, as per Reuters report, which is a more recent innovation that could make the treatment more accessible to more people.
The patient had myeloid leukemia, which originates in cells inside the bone marrow, and was given cord blood for treatment. Since then, she has been in remission and virus-free within 14 months though she has not received antiretroviral therapy, a potential HIV cure.
According to NBC, the woman dubbed as "New York patient" received the treatment at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. In 2013, she was diagnosed with HIV, and eventually, in 2017, she got leukemia.
The two previous cases involved white and Latino men who had been given adult stem cells, which are more commonly used in bone marrow transplants.
According to reports, some cases of persons were placed on antiretroviral therapy as soon as they were diagnosed with HIV, then went off treatment, and have been in viral remission with no virus recurrence for years.
A Medical Breakthrough
Experts say cord blood banks are considerably easier to test in large quantities for the HIV-resistance defect than the bone marrow registries from which oncologists obtain stem cell donors, which is one of the advantages of using this option.
Sharon Lewin, President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, said that the latest case is the third reported "cure in this setting, and the first woman living with HIV."
Lewin also said while most patients living with HIV do not benefit from bone marrow transplants, the findings suggest that a cure for HIV is viable and reinforces the case for gene therapy as a possible treatment option.
Medical experts believed that graft versus host disease, a common side-effect in stem cell transplant wherein the donor's immune system attacks the recipient's immune system, was a key to a potential HIV cure, per Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Carl Dieffenbach, director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the increasing cases of successful HIV treatment promote hope to many people.
Procedure Needs Further Study
However, for s some experts, the method of curing HIV by applying stem cell transplant is unethical because the procedure is toxic and risky, particularly to patients who do not have a possible deadly cancer condition.
Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the new case of possible HIV cure through stem cell treatment procedure. However, it is promising, is still "not a feasible strategy for all" but for "a handful" of the people infected with HIV, which is millions.
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