On Wednesday, scientists reported that two men who were under bone marrow treatments for cancer are enjoying an unbelievable and encouraging side effect. They seem to be free of the AIDS virus. But doctors are not confident to call it a cure, but they confess the patients have stopped taking HIV drugs and have remained free of the virus for almost four months in one case and almost two months in second case.
The cases of the two men were read at an International AIDS conference in Washington July,2012. Henrich, Dr.Daniel Kuritzkes and colleagues had actively looked for HIV patients with leukemia or lymphoma who were given bone marrow stem cell transplantation. Timothy Brown, who was treated for leukemia with a bone marrow transplant that happened to come from a donor with a genetic mutation that makes immune cells resist HIV infection. Timothy Brown was given transplants of bone marrow cells from a patient with a mutation in a gene called CCR5, which makes people resistant to HIV infection. But these two patients got ordinary cells.The transplantation replaced patient`s own infected cells with healthy, AIDS-resistant cells, and he remains free of the virus even for more than five years now.
Dr. Timothy Henrich of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston claims that these results are exciting but can not be treated that a cure to AIDS has been found.
It is believed that the patients undergoing bone marrow transplants, which are intended to kill the cancer and replace diseased blood and immune systems from healthy donors. In the process the patients’ own bone marrow is destroyed with chemotherapy or radiation, and replaced with a tissue-matched transplant from a healthy donor.
The case raises a big question as to when the AIDS specialists would declare a cure for AIDS?