

Bone marrow transplant 'cures HIV patient'  - keltecp11
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7726118.stm

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absconditus
This received plenty of exposure at the time it happened:

In a statement, Professor Rodolf Tauber from the Charite clinic said: "This is
an interesting case for research.

"But to promise to millions of people infected with HIV that there is hope of
a cure would not be right."

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7726118.stm>

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radu_floricica
I've heard of it before. It works, and it's not as obscure as this article
makes it look.

The downside is that it's simply too impractical. There's too much chance that
you will develop complications following the bone marrow transplant. Overall,
you're better off just taking medication.

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icey
It can't help that the only time I've heard of this so far is from this
publication... Which appears to be a small-time local publication.

It's not even on their front page.

[Edit: When I posted this comment, the link to this submission was the Gulf
Bay Area news or something like that.. It was a small gulf-state publication;
NOT the BBC. I'd delete my comment since the title and the link have
substantially changed, but there are replies, so I won't.]

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gacek
The New England Journal of Medicine is not a small-time local publication. And
this is exactly what the article is about - it should be BIG news.

<http://content.nejm.org/content/vol360/issue7/index.dtl>

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larryfreeman
Thanks for the link. I'm not able to read it without a subscription.

Is the relevant article titled: "Not an HIV Cure, but Encouraging New
Directions"?

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gacek
I guess its just an editors comment, and the source article is "Brief Report:
Long-Term Control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 Stem-Cell Transplantation"

Anyway, I can't access it as well. This is the way scientific journals promote
knowledge :/

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Tichy
Maybe because it is not applicable on a large scale? Not sure if it could
become feasible to grow the bone marrow outside of humans, but I guess it is
not feasible yet.

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larryfreeman
If I understand the story correctly, it says that 1 patient stopped having
AIDS who was being given adult stem cells as treatment.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that AIDS has been cured. Based on
researching this story, it is not clear that anyone else has been cured by
this treatment.

~~~
gacek
I haven't heard that many 'full recovery, no viruses left' HIV stories.

"one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind"

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MaysonL
Best case long-term survival rate for bone marrow transplant is probably less
than 90%.

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fhars
Actually, the survival rate for the bone marrow transplant itself is about
75%. When the story was in the news some time ago, this was widely mentioned
as the main reason why this is no viable AIDS treatment: unless you also have
terminal leukaemia, you lower you survival chance by undergoing the treatment.

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viggity
Well, if this does work, I hope that the medical community will finally get
past the "no money in exchange for organs/body parts" thing. It has good
intentions, but unfortunately it prevents thousands of people from receiving
necessary parts (whether it is a kidney, liver or bone marrow).

