Analysis Report by Bernat Soria
Health Society
IN A LEUKEMIA PATIENT HAD ALSO
cure HIV They get a stem cell transplant
MADRID, Dec. 15 ( EUROPA PRESS) - A team
Charite-University Medicine Berlin (Germany) has succeeded in curing HIV infection in a man of 40 years with a transplant of stem cells that underwent three years ago, according to reported in its online edition the journal Blood. This patient also suffered from acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that affects the immune system and, therefore, submitted in February 2007 to a powerful high-dose chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by transplanting said stem cells from a donor who had a genetic mutation that made it resistant to HIV. Then left antiretroviral treatment he was receiving and, thirteen months later, after a relapse of leukemia, underwent a second phase of treatment followed by a new stem cell transplant from the same patient.
Aunque los responsables de este paciente tenían previsto que el virus volviese a replicarse, después de tres años y medio sin tratamiento el paciente no muestra signos de VIH, ni tampoco de leucemia. "Su sistema inmunológico ha recuperado una salud normal, por lo que la cura del VIH puede haberse logrado en este paciente", señalan. Sin embargo, y pese a la eficacia de este tratamiento, sus autores insisten en que se trata de una terapia "muy arriesgada" ya que para recibir el trasplante "su sistema inmune debía desaparecer". Así, y según ha explicado el director del Centro de Sida de la Universidad of Alabama at Birmingham (USA), Michael Saag, told CNN picked up by Europa Press, "is probably a cure, but at what price." In fact, he adds, the cost of treatment is "too high" given that current antiretroviral treatments for people with HIV "can lead a normal life, despite being diagnosed with 25 years can to 85 or 90 years. Therefore, Saag regrets that "will not be applicable unless they develop leukemia or lymphoma and therefore needed a bone marrow transplant."
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