A Norwegian man has been declared effectively HIV-free after receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, marking a major breakthrough in medical science.
According to doctors, the cure came about because the patient’s older brother was a carrier of a rare virus-blocking genetic mutation. As a result, the 63-year-old Oslo patient has become one of only ten people worldwide to achieve long-term HIV remission after transplant.
The risky procedure was initially intended to treat the patient’s bone marrow cancer. These ‘cures’ usually require a donor with a rare mutation of the CCR5 gene, which effectively ‘locks the door’ against HIV.
This mutation is exceptionally rare, found in only about 1 percent of Northern Europeans.
As a result of the transplant, the donor’s cells gradually replaced the patient’s immune cells in the bone marrow, blood and intestinal tissue. After the two years of transplantation during sample evaluation, doctors found no signs of HIV DNA integration into the host DNA.
Even after two years, the patient stopped taking antiretroviral drugs intended to reduce the level of HIV in the body.
The Norwegian man has been living with HIV since 2006. In 2017, he was diagnosed with a fatal blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome.
Expressing his joy, the patient said, “It was like winning the lottery twice.”
“Replication-competent virus and HIV-specific T cell responses were absent, and HIV antibody responses showed a gradual decline,” researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Natural microbiology.
“The absence of HIV-specific T cell responses in our data supports the hypothesis that such absence correlates with sustained HIV remission,” she added.
The case study offers new insight into how HIV can be cured. According to this modeling study, it is highly possible that if the recipient receives donor cells containing a specific HIV-resistant mutation, they will experience HIV reduction and complete cure of the virus.
According to researchers, although such a method may not seem practical for most people, it will help predict long-term remission.
