This is a novelty in France: in Marseille, an HIV-positive woman is potentially cured of HIV. The patient, in his sixties and followed at the Sainte-Marguerite hospital, was diagnosed with HIV in 1999. He was treated against this HIV infection with antiretrovirals; As with all infections of this type, his viral load had become “undetectable.” or controlled by treatment, starting in 2010.
Dr. Sylvie Bregigeon, who directs the Center for Information and Assistance on Human Immunodeficiency and Viral Hepatitis (CISIH) at Sainte-Marguerite Hospital, reminds on the establishment’s website “that an undetectable viral load is not necessarily synonymous with cure.” .
“In fact, there are always traces or fragments of latent viruses capable of reactivating, replicating and re-entering the general circulation. This is the reason why HIV is a chronic persistent infection that usually requires lifelong treatment,” he adds. .
The patient transplanted for leukemia.
Ten years later, in 2020, doctors diagnosed him with acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer. In June of that same year, the patient received an allogeneic bone marrow transplant at the Paoli-Calmettes Institute in Marseille. An allograft is a transplant of bone marrow stem cells from a donor compatible with the patient suffering from a malignant disease.
The doctors managed to find a donor compatible with the patient, but who also presented “a sought-after characteristic” in the case of being HIV positive. This particularity is genetic: a mutation “called Delta32 in the CCR5 gene”, which naturally protects against HIV infection.
“In fact, the few people who exist in the world with this genetic mutation in the two alleles of the CCR5 gene cannot be contaminated by HIV,” emphasizes Dr. Sylvie Bregigeon.
The success of a similar transplant was observed in 6 of the 7 cases of functional cure of HIV reported worldwide. With this hope in mind, doctors are now pleased with the same result in the Marseille patient.
“Our patient is obviously delighted”
After her transplant, she continued taking her usual antiretroviral treatment against HIV for three years, being closely monitored by the medical teams. Since then, all tests for the virus have come back negative. “The patient stopped her treatment in October 2023,” adds Dr. Sylvie Bregigeon.
“Until today all the results remain negative! “Our patient is obviously delighted,” he rejoices.
And to conclude: “However, further progress is necessary to consolidate these results, but we can now speak of a remission of HIV infection and a possible case of cure, the first in France and the eighth in the world.”
Although it cannot currently be generalized to all HIV patients due to the cumbersome treatment associated with allograft, this advance opens new perspectives for research on the virus. And for his patients.
Source: BFM TV
