Thursday, July 24, 2014

Two men cleared of AIDS virus after bone marrow transplants - CNET

Two men cleared of AIDS virus after bone marrow transplants - CNET: "A 53-year-old and a 47-year-old man appear to be clear of HIV after receiving bone marrow transplants for leukaemia and lymphoma respectively at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, in partnership with the University of New South Wales' Kirby Institute.

Moreover, the leukaemia patient is the first recorded case of clearing the virus without the presence of a rare anti-HIV gene in the donor marrow.

To date, there have been several reported cases of cleared HIV. Timothy Ray Brown, a US citizen, was treated in 2007 and 2008 for leukaemia with transplanted stem cells from a donor with the CCR5 delta32 mutation, which is resistant to HIV, and was reported clear of the virus in 2008. Brown stopped taking his antiretroviral medication and has remained HIV-free.

In 2012, two other patients in Boston had similar treatments with bone marrow cells that did not contain the mutation. They initially tested clear of the virus, but -- when they ceased taking antiretroviral medication -- the virus returned."


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