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Two More HIV Patients Now Virus-Free Thanks To Bone Marrow Transplant
Diggester tips this quote from NBC News:
"Two men unlucky enough to get both HIV and cancer have been seemingly cleared of the virus, raising hope that science may yet find a way to cure the infection that causes AIDS, 30 years into the epidemic. The researchers are cautious in declaring the two men cured, but more than two years after receiving bone marrow transplants, HIV can't be detected anywhere in their bodies. These two new cases are reminiscent of the so-called 'Berlin patient,' the only person known to have been cured of infection from the human immunodeficiency virus."
There is not test or proof that they are 100% virus free. The test can only show that there is a high STATISTICAL probability that they MIGHT be virus free.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yes, you do have to take immunosuppressant drugs for bone marrow transplant will reject it. Probably also steroids such as Prednisone as well.
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You only have to take immunosuppressants for a year or two with a bone marrow transplant. The bone marrow will learn to recognize your body after a while.
The real danger is there is about 15 to 50% dying from the treatment itself. It is probably better to use current HIV treatments and only use the bone marrow transplant as a last resort, similar to what they do for cancer.
About 1% in northern Europeans, and it's not known to occur in other racial groups... they happened to be doing a story on the Berlin patient on CBC a few days ago, and I was listening to it.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2260029968/
And as you point out, whether a person is a good match for a bone marrow transplant is a big question... it's significantly harder to find a match for a bone marrow transplant. The video goes into detail on it.
That all depends on a host of factors. If the transplant came from a brother or sister (or from yourself, which is becoming more and more common these days) the rate of rejection is very low (still not 0, but close to it). If it's coming from a stranger rejection is more likely, though that again depends on how good the match is and how the new immune system reacts. There are even cases where doctors will chose a 'less good' match for patients with persistent cancer because it increases the chances of the new immune helping to finish off the cancer. At least, that's what they told me when I was in to donate.
Incidentally, it's not the host's body that rejects the bone marrow, it's generally the other way around. The new bone marrow rejects the host, called graft vs host disease.
I was told the death rate is ~10% from the radiation to kill the patient's current bone marrow, ~5% due to graft vs host disease, and the rest of the fatality rate is due to the cancer not really being gone when they do the transplant. So the actual fatality rates would be much closer to the 15%, less still if you are doing it to otherwise healthy patients, and if you have a perfect match (from a sibling generally) the graft vs host disease rate will go to near zero. I bet you could push it down to 5%, still probably not worth it for most people... but I could imagine women who want to have kids taking the risk for one thing (though a bone marrow transplant might make getting pregnant risky in and of itself, just using it as an example).
Lots of people don't realize anyone can be a bone marrow donor.. Be the Match runs a large registry. I clicked a few buttons on the website, and 2 weeks later, had a cheekswab in the mail. Probably simpler than registering to be a donor on my Drivers License, because I didn't have to wait at the DMV :)
This is somewhat off-topic, since it doesn't have to do with the treatment, or treatment for aids, but Bone Marrow transplants are needed for lots of cancers too.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?