Source: UniversalImagesGroup / Getty
This could be Huge!! A London man appears to be free of the AIDS virus after a stem cell transplant, the second success from this procedure to treat the disease.
According to USAToday.com, a patient who was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 has become the second patient ever known to be cured of HIV after receiving a bone marrow transplant intended to treat cancer. The patient received the stem cell transplant from a donor with a rare CCR5 mutation that allows HIV resistance in May of 2016 to treat his Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The London patient, who is remaining anonymous, also underwent chemotherapy. He took antiretroviral therapy drugs for HIV until September of 2017, doctors say. His drug regiment was much less harsh than the only other known patient who was cured of HIV. He has been HIV-free, in remission, for 18 months, according to tests.
According to the Associated Press, The first patient to be cured of HIV, Berlin patient Timothy Ray Brown, underwent two bone-marrow transplants also for cancer treatments, took a cocktail of drugs and experienced serious complications that put his life in danger. At one point, doctors induced a coma. He survived the ordeal, coming out of it without HIV. Over a decade later, he is still considered cured. Treatments that have tried to replicate Brown’s result in other HIV patients have failed, until now.
This offers hope for anyone suffering from HIV. Your Thoughts??
