A man with HIV was the latest and sixth person to be declared in long-term remission. Unlike the previous cases, however, he did not receive a transplant with virus-blocking gene mutation.
How Did the Geneva Patient Get Cured?
Five people have been declared cured of HIV: the patients from New York and City of Hope, Berlin, California, Duesseldorf, and London. All of them underwent bone marrow transplants intended to heal severe cancer cases. They all received stem cells from a donor with a CCR5 gene mutation, which is known to block HIV from entering the body's cells.
In 2018, a white man known as the Geneva patient received a similar stem cell transplant to cure an aggressive type of leukemia. However, the transplant he received did not contain the CCR5 mutation, which means that the virus can still enter the patient's cells.
The man then decided to stop the antiretroviral treatment, reducing the amount of HIV in his blood. After 20 months, the doctors at Geneva University Hospitals did not find a trace of the virus in his body system. Although they cannot give assurance that the HIV will not return, the doctors consider the Geneva patient to be in long-term remission.
The Geneva patient was diagnosed with HIV in 1990. He had been taking antiretrovirals until November 2021, when his doctors advised him to stop therapy after undergoing the bone marrow transplant.
In two similar cases, individuals known as the Boston patients received a wild type of stem cells during their transplant sessions. However, HIV returned a few months after they decided to stop taking their antiretrovirals.
Scientist Asier Saez-Cirion from France's Pasteur Institute explained two possible reasons why the Geneva patient remains free from HIV. One theory is that the transplant destroyed all the infected cells without the need for the CCR5 mutation. Another reason could be that his immunosuppressive treatment, which was needed after the transplant, played a key role in his healing.
The case of the Geneva patient is considered promising by the scientific community. The experts believe that cases of long-term remission offer hope that HIV can be cured someday. They could provide new avenues of research, particularly on the role played by immunosuppressive treatments.
What is Stem Cell Therapy?
In the human body, there is a special kind of cell called stem cell, which has the unique ability to renew itself and generate specialized types of cells. Although most of our cells, such as heart or skin cells, are committed to performing a specific function, a stem cell remains uncommitted until it is given the signal to develop into a specialized cell.
During the past decade, experts discovered that certain types of stem cells can be utilized in various clinical scenarios, giving rise to stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy is a form of regenerative medicine designed to repair damaged cells within the body through the reduction of inflammation and modulation of the immune system. This approach has been used in treating neurological, autoimmune, orthopedic, and inflammatory conditions.
New stem cell therapies do not necessarily heal such conditions since they only allow the human body to heal well enough to alleviate symptoms. In most cases, this method can increase patients' quality of life or delay the disease's progression.
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