Another patient “cured” of HIV after a transplant!

A patient wishing to remain anonymous is considered in durable remission for HIV following a bone marrow transplant. This is the fourth person “cured” of HIV by this technique, but also the oldest!

” When I tested positive for HIV in 1988, like so many others, I thought it was a death sentence. I never thought that I would live long enough to see the day when I had no more HIV Says the patient now in remission. Wishing to remain anonymous, the 66-year-old man received a graft of bone marrow in 2019 to treat his leukemia myeloid caused by the AIDS.

Luckily, his donor carried the CCR5Δ32 mutation which makes him HIV resistant. On July 27, 2022, the doctors of the transplant recipient declared him in remissionmaking him the fourth patient, but also the oldest, treated by this technique.

A bone marrow transplant to cure AIDS and cancer

” We were thrilled to tell him that he is in remission from HIV and no longer needs to take the antiretroviral treatment he has been taking for over 30 years. commented Jana K. Dickter, one of her doctors. Since stopping his medication in 2021, the patient in remission has been closely monitored by the medical staff of the City of Hope. He is showing no signs of relapse so far. He had to undergo a chemotherapy light to ensure that its cancer don’t come back.

the hospital City of Hope is at the origin of a clinical trial which studies the feasibility of autologous transplants to treat patients suffering from HIV and blood cancers. The procedure consists of taking the stem cells blood samples of the patient, then to modify them to make them resistant to HIV, thanks to techniques of genetic engineering, before re-injecting them. The patient then becomes his own donor.