Woman could be first female patient cured of HIV

Identified only as the “New York patient,” the woman was diagnosed with HIV in 2013 and leukemia in 2017. A team of U.S. scientists presented research results on Tuesday indicating a new stem cell transplant treatment has eradicated the virus in the woman for more than 14 months. If she continues to be in remission for a few more years, they will consider her fully cured, making her the world’s first woman and only third patient to be cured.

What was the treatment? The team at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center developed a haplo-cord transplant to use umbilical cord blood rather than bone marrow. Transplants often need an HIV-resistant abnormality sometimes found in people of European descent, making treatment difficult for the majority of patients in the U.S. The mixed-race patient partially matched the umbilical cord blood from an infant donor, so doctors paired it with stem cells from an adult. She discontinued HIV treatments three years after the transplant and is in remission from leukemia, as well. Most experts maintain HIV cures from risky stem cell treatments are unethical and should only be considered for patients who also face other life-threatening conditions.

Dig deeper: Read Julie Borg’s report in Beginnings about the first successful stem cell transplant in a Parkinson’s patient.