- Title: GERMANY: HIV-patient apparently free of virus after leukemia treatment
- Date: 13th November 2008
- Summary: (EU) BERLIN, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 12, 2008) (REUTERS) GERMAN BILD-ZEITUNG WITH HEADLINE READING "SENSATION! BERLIN DOCTOR CURES AIDS PATIENT" HEADLINE
- Embargoed: 28th November 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Entertainment,Health
- Reuters ID: LVA16F4CODHYSII0ME0MNBY4UNMM
- Story Text: The leukemia treatment for a HIV-patient in Berlin has resulted in the virus being undetectable in the patient even two years after he refrained from taking anti-HIV-medication.
Physicians at the renowned Charite clinic in Berlin announced the surprising find at a news conference on Wednesday (November 12) after German tabloid newspaper "Bild" published the find as a "sensation" in a front-page spread in the morning.
A 42 year-old American living in the German capital was treated for leukemia by Gero Huetter, 39, a hematologist at the Charite. The patient was also infected with the HI-Virus, Huettner said at the news conference.
"The treatment we employed using stem cells was used to treat leukemia, not the HIV infection" clarified Huetter. "It was a secondary effect, so to speak, we would have employed the stem cell treatment anyway, even if we hadn't found the right donor with the right mutation and dilatation."
Huetter also strongly warned against false hopes that this might be a cure for AIDS as the treatment applied was far too dangerous. "We must state clearly that neither today nor in the near future this procedure will be suitable to treat an HIV infection in any way, shape or form, even in other patients with an additional hemic disease," Huetter stressed. "This is because the procedure comes with such a high mortality rate that it would be ethically unjustifiable, except in this specific situation, when a patient was forced to have a transplant because of his other disease. I am saying this to minimize false hopes that with this patient the HIV problem might be eliminated."
The patient has not taken any HIV-medication, so called antiretroviral medicines, for more than 600 days after having had a bone marrow transplant.
So far, doctors have not been able to detect traces of the HI-Virus in the patient.
"We are surprised that HIV is undetectable in the patient after such a long time without antiretroviral treatment," Thomas Schneider, a specialist in infectious diseases and gastroenterology, said of the phenomenon. "We did not only check the blood but also reservoirs where the virus might have retreated to such as the central nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. The virus could not be detected there, either."
Huetter himself warned that the virus and with it, AIDS, might come back to haunt the patient: "We know that the HI-Virus is very tricky and can, of course, return during the course of this disease, we cannot tell yet", he said.
For the treatment of his patient, Huetter took advantage of a mutation within the human body - a molecule, the so-called CCR5, is normally found on the outer walls of cells where it acts as a type of door opener, and most HIV variations have to bind CCR5 in order to enter the cell. The mutation prevents CCR5 from appearing on the cell's surface, thus preventing the virus from entering the cell. Only about one percent of Europeans inherit the mutation from both parents.
Huetter, who conducted the treatment at the Charite's Benjamin-Franklin-Campus, found a bone marrow donor carrying the mutation. He took his patient off HIV drugs because they might be undermining the fragile marrow transplant. Huetter transplanted and the specialists originally scheduled the patient to go back on HIV-tretament after the transplant. So far, he did not need to. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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