Chicago, Europe Brief News – According to the Research presented at the conference, a US woman has emerged as the only woman and third known person in the world who have gone through HIV remission.
It was all made possible with the help of transplant of stem cells from umbilical cord blood. The medical experts said, it will open new horizons for curing HIV patients.
She is a mixed race middle aged woman who was initially diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. And after four years of fighting with the disease, she came out HIV positive.
After the leukaemia diagnosis, she received intense-dose chemotherapy that tore down her blood cells. After that she received a transplant of stem cells from adult family members to restore her own blood cell level.
This Procedure serves as a bridge to support her blood cells which she received stem cells through umbilical cord blood from an unrelated newborn.
Use Of Newborn Umbilical Cord blood
The Advantage of getting umbilical cord blood from a newborn is that it takes around a month or two to start producing cells. The cord blood has a mutation that produces cell resistance to HIV infection.
The Woman reportedly stopped taking HIV meds also known as antiretroviral therapy after her transplant in 2017.
Dr Marshall Gelsby, Associate Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine said “ The advantage of using cord blood is that it is taken from a national repository that allows scientists to identify blood the HIV-resistant mutation”.
According to the Medical experts, the mutation is mostly found in northern European families and that drops the chances of transplant to people who are not white.
However, the women who were recognized as mixed race fortunately found out to be the perfect match for the transplant.
It shows a wider pool of possible Transplant recipients are from diverse racial backgrounds. Cord blood does not need to be a perfect match as adult donor stem cells.
DR Gelsby said “ So Cord blood would potentially be more widely available to people who need a transplant who have HIV, because of this lack of a necessity for rigorous matching”.
The Researchers have made it clear that this development can only be available for a small number of people suffering from HIV disease.
Around 50 people who are suffering with HIV and blood cancer can receive treatment with this new approach.
