Magazine Nature Medicine recently reported the news that some experts in theUniversity of Dusseldorfin Germany, allegedly cured a case of Hiv thanks to a bone marrow transplant.
The operation of moving hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of the disease had the effect of the suppression of the virus for a period of time more than 9 years after the transplant, allowing for the first time to be able to stop taking drugs.
The patient is a 53-year-old man who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in the year 2011. Just two years later he had undergone some antiretroviral treatments that they should have accompanied him for life in order to keep the virus under control. Following the transplant of stem cells taken from the bone marrow received in 2013 thanks to a donor, the HIV virus was no longer detected in the man’s blood cells and this led doctors to consider victory against this deadly disease possible .
The donor has been selected especially since he had a genetic mutation (CCR5delta32) capable of making him resistant to HIV, as the virus is not put in a position to be able to take root inside the body.
A definitive defeat of the virus?
Nine years after receiving the aforementioned transplant, the doctors returned to monitor the progress of the disease in the patient but pleasantly noted that there was no sign of a functional and replicating HIV genome in the body. Man was therefore confirmed the status of complete remission from HIV as the virus has been definitively deprived of its viral load.
The unbelievable case is one of three studied so far by experts who have been trying for years to find a way to eradicate the virus that leads to AIDS. Named case of Dusseldorf, is the latest to add to the list of complete remission together with Berlin patient and that Londoner.
Il Patient from Berlin (born in 1966) was the first official patient to have managed to remain in complete remission for 12 years, at the end of which, however, he failed to defeat the leukemia that led to his death.
Il London patient instead he is currently still alive and as in the Dusselforf case he has been in a stage of remission for four years.
However, the interventions under consideration can be seen as important steps towards a definitive cure for the virus that causes AIDS, but they cannot constitute a norm in terms of their high level of danger associated with relatively high costs.