14 hours agoIncreases in HIV Treatment
Periskopi(7 years ago)
(7 years ago)Doctors used spinal cord transplant to save an HIV patient. The result was amazing: the person who did not want to be identified and recognised only as the “patient from London” gives signs of the virus's remission to the organism, becoming the second person in the world to whom one thing [...]
Doctors used spinal cord transplant to save an HIV patient. The result was amazing: the person who did not want to be identified and recognised only as the “patient from London” gives signs of the virus's remission to the organism, becoming the second person in the world to whom it happens.
Worldwide, there are 37 million people currently infected with the fatal virus. Its treatment and results were published in the international scientific magazine “Nature” and are expected to be officially announced at the medical conference in Seattle, now held soon.
Experts used the same method that was successfully applied to an HIV-affected patient in 2007; with the latest achievement, they showed that the Berlin case was not just an abnormality, but that treatment works. In both cases, patients have taken stem cells from the spinal cord of donors who have a genetic mutation known as CCR5, which makes them HIV resistant.
Replacement of patient cells infected with mutations keeps the virus away from treatment. Despite optimism, however, doctors showed caution, saying it is still early to claim that the person has finally recovered.
