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Medicine Science

First Woman Reported Cured of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant (reuters.com) 81

Posted by BeauHD from the cutting-edge-science dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A U.S. patient with leukemia has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday. The case of a middle-aged woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people. Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia -- a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow -- the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months, without the need for potent HIV treatments known as antiretroviral therapy. The two prior cases occurred in males -- one white and one Latino -- who had received adult stem cells, which are more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.

"This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV," Sharon Lewin, President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement. The case is part of a larger U.S.-backed study led by Dr. Yvonne Bryson of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It aims to follow 25 people with HIV who undergo a transplant with stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions.
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First Woman Reported Cured of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant More

First Woman Reported Cured of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant

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  • Cured of HIV (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dies of heart attack after seeing the bill

  • IIRC, organ transplant recipients in general can look forward to a lifetime of immunosuppressants (ironic, since acquired immunodeficiency is the characteristic AIDS which makes it so terrifying). That's not the problem, though . . .

    AIDS itself generally doesn't kill directly. Leukemia does. That's the only reason leukemia patients are given bone marrow transplants - it's the last resort, the only hope. The fact is, those things are dangerous. Go read up on how a bone marrow transplant works. You rea

    • The main thing (from what I understand) is that they went into the operation with a plan for curing AIDS, in addition to treating the leukemia.

      So while yes, it isn't a general cure, it was an intentional cure.

    • AIDS is the most extreme result of HIV. The patient was cured of HIV, which by itself is not yet anywhere near so profound and which many people are surviving until a more typical death. Please don't mix them up. AIDS is _much_ harder to treat.

      Some nations, such as South Africa, have 20% of their population invected with HIV. The statistics in the USA are deliberately provided in confusing formats, discussing primarily the roughly 20,000 new cases per year and ignoring the current 1.2 million HIV cases in

    • Quote: "...since acquired immunodeficiency is the characteristic AIDS ..."

      Nope, it's not the "characteristic", it's the NAME:

      Acquired InmunoDeficiency Syndrome = AIDS.

      Maybe you wanted to say AIDS is the characteristic of VIH, which, to be fair, it's not a "characteristic" but a "consequence".

    • "Close enough for government work" doesn't cut it after all of the patient's existing bone marrow has been nuked,

      And by "close enough for government work" you mean like this [yahoo.com], right?

      Government may screw up and not always be top notch, but it's amazing how when things go wrong or private industry fails, people always go to the government to fix things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      This is more along the line of a secondary benefit. *IF* you need a marrow transplant for some reason and you also have AIDS, it makes sense to try for a match with someone with natural resistance to AIDS so you can hopefully cure both conditions at once. I suspect that a matching donor who also has resistance to AIDS is a rare thing and that is why the person in TFA is only the third such case recorded.

      Kind of like type 1 diabetes is not an indication for a transplanted pancreas, but if you are diabetic AN

  • "bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV", so this technique is pretty amazing but is not likely to be useful for most people with HIV or myeloid leukemia. May some things can be learned from it.

  • Not only did she identify as a woman, but she is a "middle-aged woman of mixed race", according to TFA.

    Bravo! A victory in the war on Sexism and Racism!

    Seriously, why the focus on sex and race in this report? I had not even heard of the first two cures. Interesting news that people can now be considered completely cured, regardless of their group identity. Is identity politics taking over medicine now?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NateFromMich ( 6359610 )

      Seriously, why the focus on sex and race in this report?

      It's all we care about anymore. In fact, you're sexist and racist for even questioning it.

      • Re:Woman of Colour (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @06:37AM (#62272149) Homepage Journal

        Or perhaps because it's medically relevant. The treatment seems to work for a wide variety of human beings.

        As we saw recently with COVID, sometimes race and gender are factors. Same goes for treatments. Fortunately the COVID vaccines seem to work for most people.

        This is very promising news.

    • Re:Woman of Colour (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Baconsmoke ( 6186954 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @01:47AM (#62271821)
      Not sure if you are discussing your personal ideology or are looking for an honest conversation. I'll take a chance it's the second one. It is important to understand gender and race when it comes to medical science. There have been numerous times throughout the history of medicine where results can be different based on those two factors. Risk factors can be radically different for different races and genders as well. Which is another substantial variable. Up until just the past few decades this was almost completely ignored and it wasn't until we started taking a hard look at it that we began to realize this. If you are interested I recommend doing some searches and reading up on it. It's actually pretty interesting and you might find it worth your time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        I'm well aware that disease risk and best medical treatments can differ between the sexes and races.
        Perhaps there is some reason why it is more difficult, or even different, to cure HIV in females?
        Some medical reason for emphasising the sex? It is plausible, but was not mentioned in TFA.

        I hope your implication that this was medically significant has some truth, but can you provide any evidence? I fear you are grasping at straws.

        • It isn't my responsibility to provide you evidence. You're a capable human and can look into this on your own. But you don't want to. Apparently it was my first guess at your angle that was correct. You're here to reinforce your ideology and have no interest in learning something new. Especially if it gets in the way of you making a point about the ruination of society by bringing gender and race into a conversation. I guess we're at a stalemate. You're too attached to trying to zing people on the internet

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

            To be anal about it, it would have been nice for the article to delve into why sex and race is relevant here. I think it is never the reader's job to go hunting for this info.
            Where even to begin? It's a pretty abstract question that I am willing to bet money on Google not being able to deal with.

            Your assumption that your parent poster is is just trying to cement his bias is just as biased.

            The both ofmyou stand on different sides of the discussion. He is fed up with the woke narrative to the point of annoyan

            • Sex and race are relevant here in terms of tissue donation and relationship between donor and recipient. The donor and recipient are not directly related and are different races and genders. From this one sample size, race and gender do not appear to be a limiting factor for this type of treatment. With more cases, it might be that success might he higher if the donor and recipient were of same gender and/or genetic makeup.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        While your statement is true, it is completely irrelevant. It has been known for decades that there is no statistical differences between outcomes of HIV patients that are based on race, gender, etc..

        The only differentiating factor for HIV outcomes is wealth. Those who have more wealth live longer than those who have less. Now, you can say that people of non-white race are more likely to have less wealth, and you would be right, but that would not make race the primary cause of decreased life with HIV. It i

      • I expect someone to shout at you about using "gender" instead of "sex" to refer to biological distinctions.

    • Does not say if she is very wealthy or not, but if she isn't then she has overcome the three biggest barriers to getting leading edge treatments in many places. Otherwise only two.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Does not say if she is very wealthy or not, but if she isn't then she has overcome the three biggest barriers to getting leading edge treatments in many places. Otherwise only two.

        Did you seriously just say that sex and skin colour can be barriers for rich people betting medical care in the US? What are you smoking?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      It's pretty telling that you think race/sex was mentioned for political reasons, rather than the fact that it's medically relevant. Especially since those that seem to be most ruffled by all this "identity politics" stuff are the quickest to point out that sex is a biological thing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        It's pretty telling that you think race/sex was mentioned for political reasons, rather than the fact that it's medically relevant. Especially since those that seem to be most ruffled by all this "identity politics" stuff are the quickest to point out that sex is a biological thing.

        It is pretty telling that you resort to a personal attack, rather than trying to address the genuine question. Medical relevance is plausible, but never mentioned in the article.

  • Presumably they're talking about donors with the CCR5 mutation. That's all well and good, but this isn't really news until they come up with a way to clone those stem cells in the first place. Otherwise, it's what we in the medical community have been talking about for years, just finally (and gratefully) implemented. If they can manage to mass produce this somehow that would be great. Meanwhile,
  • in the first place :
    - move out of belgium with my cats
    - stemcell therapy
    - longevity vaccine / clinical immortality
    - ticket to a house on mars
    they fucked it - i should think "snickers" and a cola

  • Always figured dentist types want your wisdom teeth out sooo ooo bad b/c they must get paid $$$$ for the stem cells. Am I right or just living in my own world here?

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