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Studies detailing three different
approaches are offering hope that a cure for AIDS is on the horizon. All
involve procedures or treatments that are already in use, but await further
research to see if they can deliver as a cure.
Stem-cell transplantation, an
expensive procedure with its own risks, was the method used for the only person
believed to have been cured of HIV infection. Timothy Brown received the
treatment in Germany for leukemia. His physician purposefully chose a donor who
carried a rare mutation that made cells resistant to HIV infection. When Brown
recovered, he had no detectable virus.
In research presented Thursday to
the 19th International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Washington, two other similar
cases involved lymphoma patients. The chemotherapy they had received was less
aggressive than that given Brown, and more of their immune cells remained. The
transplanted cells appear to have tracked down these cells, some of which were
HIV-infected, and destroyed them in a reaction called “graft vs. host disease.”
No HIV could be grown out of one patient’s blood 3.5 years later, or from the
other patient’s blood almost two years later, reported Timothy J. Henrich and
Daniel R. Kuritzkes of Harvard Medical School.
A second strategy involved treatment
immediately after infection. In a study presented at IAC by Charline Bacchus
and Asier Saez Cirion of the Pasteur Institute in France, 14 patients had
initiated a standard three-drug HIV treatment regimen within weeks of
infection, then stopped taking them three years later on average. After an
average of six years off the drugs, the patients still have little or no
detectable HIV in their blood.
The patients do have virus in some
sleeping immune cells, but not the long-living type. The patients also lack the
usual genetic profile of “elite controllers.” One theory is that treatment had
begun so early the infection did not have enough time to take residence in
various tissues.
A third strategy is called “shock
and kill” and involves flushing HIV from sleeping cells with an existing cancer
drug, destroying the reservoirs of the virus.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
