US Medical Team Achieves Success in Treating Leukemia and HIV with Stem Cells... First Female Patient

First Use of Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells in HIV Treatment

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] In the United States, a leukemia patient infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), was successfully treated for both leukemia and HIV by transplanting umbilical cord blood stem cells.

On the 15th (local time), foreign media such as The New York Times (NYT) and CNN reported that Dr. Yvonne Bryson of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Dr. Deborah Persaud's team from Johns Hopkins University announced this research achievement at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) held in Denver.

This is the third time in history that HIV has been treated using stem cells in the United States, and the first time for a female patient. It is also the first time that umbilical cord blood was used for HIV treatment, according to foreign media reports.

The treated patient is a middle-aged mixed-race woman who was diagnosed with HIV infection in June 2013 and acute myeloid leukemia in 2017.

After the leukemia diagnosis, the patient underwent high-dose chemotherapy that destroys blood cells. Subsequently, in August 2017, she received a transplant of umbilical cord blood stem cells from a donor with a mutation that prevents the virus from entering human cells.

Thirty-seven months after the stem cell transplant, the patient stopped taking antiretroviral HIV medication. Fourteen months later, no HIV virus was detected in her body. The leukemia is also in remission. In cancer treatment, remission means symptom relief or disappearance of tumors.

Dr. Steven Deeks, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco, evaluated, "The fact that the patient is mixed-race and female is scientifically very important and also significant in terms of the actual impact on treatment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.