14 DAY TRIAL // Doctors speaking at yesterday's International AIDS Society Conference in Kuala Lumpur announced that stem cells might have helped two male patients get rid of the HIV virus.
The men were treated with stem-cell transplants 3, respectively 5 years ago.
The physicians who performed the transplants explained that the procedures were carried out in order to treat blood cancer lymphoma by replacing the men's bone marrow, Nature reports.
On July 12, tests indicated that neither man had detectable levels of HIV in their bodies.
Due to the fact that, in those days, the patients were still taking antiretroviral drugs, researchers were unable to say whether the apparent absence of HIV had been brought about by the stem-cell transplants or was merely caused by the medication the men had been prescribed.
Fifteen weeks ago, one of these patients stopped taking antiretroviral drugs. The other man has also given them up for about 7 weeks.
Tests have shown that, despite their no longer taking treatment for HIV, neither patient has traces of HIV DNA or RNA in their blood, the same source reports.
Doctors are skeptical about declaring that the stem-cell transplants have in fact purged these men's bodies of the HIV virus.
However, they admit evidence they presently have at their disposal hints at the idea that the patients are now cured.
“We’re being very careful not to say that these patients are cured. But the findings to date are very encouraging,” researcher Daniel Kuritzkes explained in his speech at said conference.
Scientists suspect that, when the stem cells were injected into the patients' bodies, they started killing off host cells that they chanced to come across. More precisely, they destroyed the HIV reservoirs that were already inside the patients.
This phenomenon, known as the graft-versus-host disease, is an immune response quite common among transplant patients.