A man who was diagnosed with HIV in 2008, nine years after his initial treatment with a stem cell transplant, appears to be symptom-free. This patient, who was also diagnosed with leukemia, had undergone a stem cell transplant for cancer treatment.
A 53-year-old man in Germany with the name “Dusseldorf patientIt is known that he is the fifth patient who has been freed from the bite of HIV. Although scientists first announced the successful treatment of this patient at a conference in 2019, it was not officially announced at the time that he had been cured. Now the researchers have finally confirmed that it passed four years Since taking the last drug, there is still no trace of HIV in his body.
What was the condition of HIV treatment in the Dusseldorf patient?
The Düsseldorf patient first started antiretroviral therapy in 2010, but a year later developed Leukemia Recognized. Considering his acute condition, the doctors decided to try a more risky treatment and from Stem cell transplantation take advantage In this procedure, stem cells are taken from a donor’s bone marrow or blood and replaced with the patient’s white blood cells.
In this case, stem cells were used from a donor whose body was almost immune to HIV due to a genetic mutation. Now, about 9 years after the first treatment and 4 years after stopping antiviral drugs, researchers say that the Dusseldorf patient’s body has been cleared of the HIV virus.
The middle-aged man joins four other patients who underwent stem cell therapy and appeared to have all traces of the HIV genome wiped from their bodies. These four other patients are known as “City of Hope”, “London”, “New York” and “Berlin”.
However, the use of stem cell therapy is risky because these cells can be harmful and do not always help to treat leukemia. Currently, stem cell transplantation is used only as a last resort and in acute conditions.
The researchers have published the results of their study in the journal Nature Medicine.
