Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) may be on the way soon with the
report yesterday of two patients who were given bone marrow
transplants to treat cancer remained free of the virus even after
stopping HIV treatment.
The results presented at a meeting of the International AIDS Society
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia may yield growing hope that the virus could
someday be cured, not just kept in check with a cocktail of medicines
as it is now.
Giving an update in an eagerly followed trial, researchers said an
HIV-positive infant in Mississippi, United States, who was put on a
course of antiretroviral drugs within a few days of birth had remained
free of the AIDS virus 15 months after treatment was stopped.
In Boston, United States, two HIV-positive men who were given
bone-marrow transplants for cancer also had no detectable virus 15
weeks and seven weeks respectively after stopping AIDS drugs, a
separate team reported.
Both research projects are at an early stage and should not be taken
as a sign that a cure for the human HIV is around the corner,
researchers cautioned.
Even so, they said it strengthens the motivation for pursuing the
once-unthinkable goal of eradicating HIV or repressing it without
daily drugs – a condition referred to as a "functional cure" or
"functional remission".Indeed, an international non-profit
organisation dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention
and treatment education has reported a breakthrough in the case of two
HIV-positive patients who show no trace of virus following stem-cell
transplants.Dr. Timothy Henrich of Harvard Medical School, United
States yesterday reported that a 25 year-old amfAR-funded leadership
research in the fight against AIDS has at last produced evidence of
total cure. A statement by the organisation indicated that it is
closing in on a total cure for AIDS globally.
Henrich's patients had been on long-term antiretroviral therapy for
HIV when they developed lymphoma. To treat the cancer, the patients
underwent stem-cell transplants. Since the transplants, Henrich has
been unable to find any evidence of HIV infection. With support from a
special amfAR grant made possible by the Bucks County Friends of amfAR
and the Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation, Henrich conducted a clinical
study in which his research team withdrew the patients' antiretroviral
therapy and performed several sophisticated tests looking for signs of
viral rebound in blood and other tissues. One patient has been off
treatment with no detectable virus for approximately 15 weeks and the
second patient for seven weeks, but it is too soon to draw any
definitive long-term conclusions.
The first person to be cured of HIV, Timothy Brown ("the Berlin
patient"), also underwent a stem-cell transplant to treat his
leukemia. These new cases differ significantly, however, in that the
stem-cell donors lacked the genetic mutation (CCR5 delta32) that
renders a person virtually resistant to HIV infection.The statement
posited that these findings provide important new information that
might well alter the current thinking about HIV and gene therapy. It
stated that stem-cell transplantation cannot be used on a broad scale
to treat people with HIV because of its costs and complexity, but was
optimistic that the two recorded cases could lead the team of
researchers to new ways of treating- and ultimately even eradicating
HIV.An estimated 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide,
and about 1.8 million die each year.The virus was first identified in
1981, and until the advent of anti-retroviral was essentially a death
sentence, progressively destroying the immune system until the patient
succumbed to pneumonia or another opportunistic disease.
No comments:
Post a Comment