Using stem cells, an American patient with leukemia became the first woman and third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the AIDS virus, researchers say. Discuss
A woman's case presented at the Denver Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections is also the first case to use cord blood, a newer approach that could make treatment available to more people.
After receiving cord blood to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that begins in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow, a woman has been in remission and free of the virus for over a year.
This case is part of a larger study led by Dr. Yvonne Bryson of UCLA and Dr. Deborah Perso of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The aim of the study is to follow 25 people with HIV who underwent cord blood stem cell transplantation to treat cancer and other serious diseases.
Source: Reuters