The 66-year-old patient at the City of Hope Cancer Center in California, USA, has made a full recovery following undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia, researchers said Wednesday ahead of the international AIDS conference that begins Friday in Montreal, Canada announced.
The “City of Hope” patient is the second HIV patient to be completely cured this year. In February, researchers had declared a US citizen known as a New York patient recovered. Previously, patients from London and Berlin might be cured.
“Believed, like so many others, that it was my death sentence”
The fourth patient, who wished to remain anonymous, said in a statement from the California Cancer Center: “When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1988, like many others at the time, I believed it was my death sentence. I never thought I’d see the day would experience when I no longer have HIV. I am eternally grateful.”
The City of Hope patient was diagnosed with leukemia in 2019. As a result, like the two HIV patients from London and Berlin, he received a bone marrow transplant using stem cells from an unrelated donor with a rare mutation missing part of the CCR5 gene. The causative agent of the immune deficiency disease AIDS cannot harm people without this gene.
After the corona vaccination in March 2021, the patient discontinued the antiretroviral medication and has since been considered completely cured. The patient had been infected with the HI virus for 31 years, longer than the other people who might be completely cured.
Jana Dickter, an infectious disease specialist at the City of Hope Cancer Center, told AFP he was the oldest of the fully cured HIV patients and his success holds promise for other older HIV patients who are also developing suffer from cancer.
The reduced-intensity chemotherapy helped the patient and may provide treatment for other older HIV patients with cancer, Dickter said. However, it is a complicated treatment with severe side effects that is not an option for most HIV patients.
