Breakthrough in HIV Treatment: Fourth Patient Reported As Possible Cure
Scientists at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center reported this month that a patient under their care appears to have been cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant. The patient is the first woman to have experienced a multi-year remission after undergoing the innovative and risky procedure, and only the fourth patient so far to have been identified as possibly cured.
One of the key things that makes this case such a promising advancement in HIV treatment is that the transplant the New York woman received is of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, rather than the adult stem cell transplants received by the three previous patients who have been cured. The immense advantages here are that cord blood stem cells have more potential diversity, and do not require as close a genetic match between donor and recipient. This opens up the possibility of stem cell transplant treatment to many more HIV patients.
At the moment, says Dr. Koen van Besien from the transplant program, “We estimate that there are approximately 50 patients per year in the U.S. who could benefit from this procedure [to treat HIV]. The ability to use partially matched umbilical cord blood grafts greatly increases the likelihood of finding suitable donors for such patients.”
The procedure is both invasive and risky—it basically destroys the patient’s immune system with aggressive chemotherapy and then reconstructs it with the stem cell transplant—so it is reserved for people experiencing life-threatening complications of HIV. This patient was diagnosed with leukemia, according to the New York Presbyterian/Weill Medical Center team. She has now been in remission from leukemia for more than four years; fourteen months ago, she discontinued all treatments for HIV, and since that time there had been no evidence of the virus in her body.
Dr. Yvonne J. Bryson, who presented the case at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, was quoted by NBC as saying “I’m excited that it’s turned out so well for her.” Bryson went on to describe the case as giving researchers “more hope and more options for the future.”
In addition to the exciting news for people living with HIV, the success of umbilical cord stem cell transplants continues to transform treatment strategies for leukemia and other blood malignancies, as well as for non-malignant blood and metabolic disorders. According to a 2020 clinical review, “Over 40,000 UCB transplants have been performed [since 1989] worldwide for a wide variety of malignant and non-malignant disorders.”
