Two Down, Many More To Go: Another Person Cured of HIV

[Image description: A red ribbon against a white background. End description.]

Before I begin today, I would like to send my best wishes out to everyone in these troubling, uncertain times. I hope you and your families are well. Remember to look out for one another. That said…Some good news!

    There has been an exciting development in the field of HIV research! A second person has now been designated “cured” of HIV, according to this article. In an interesting turn of events, the treatment he received was as a result of cancer. If I’m understanding correctly, this treatment was used as a form of symptom management to deal with particular risks of being HIV positive and having Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the blood. The patient, Adam Castillejo, received a stem-cell transplant from a donor with an HIV-resistant mutation. Once transplanted, the donor’s resistant immune cells then replicate within the body, increasingly narrowing the amount of cells that can be infected with HIV. As of now, Adam Castillejo has been off of antiretroviral medication for more than two years and is symptom-free.

    While immensely hope-inspiring, it is important to realize that this is not a treatment for everyone with HIV. Stem-cell transplants are an intense treatment reserved as a last resort. Even for all of the pain and complications, failure is common. This treatment is also only used on HIV+ people with blood cancers, so it isn’t suitable for HIV+ people with other forms of cancer. If a person is responding well to antiretroviral treatment (and does not have cancer), the current form of this treatment would not be suitable for them.

The virus, though inactive and difficult to detect, is still at least partially present in Mr. Castillejo’s body. The Berlin Patient (the first to have been cured) has been HIV-free for thirteen years, and Mr. Castillejo for over two. This is not a guarantee that the HIV will not reoccur. Nonetheless, this is still a cause for celebration. Mr. Castillejo’s recovery is a point in favor of the reproducibility of the favorable treatment outcome first seen with the Berlin Patient, and while the current treatment is only available to a small group of people, this demonstrates the potential of gene therapy as a form of treatment and potential cure for HIV.

(A little more information on Adam Castillejo can be found here.)