Umbilical Cord Blood Used to Help Cure Woman of HIV & Leukemia

In a promising breakthrough treatment, a woman has been cured of HIV through a transplant using umbilical cord blood.

The woman, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2013 and acute myelogenous leukemia in 2017, was treated with a transplant of umbilical-cord stem cells from a partially matched donor and blood from an adult relative. The patient has now been in remission from her leukemia for over four years, and in October 2020, her doctors discontinued her HIV treatment, as she had no signs of the virus in her body. She became the fourth person to be cured of the virus and the first person cured of HIV using umbilical cord blood. She is now the first woman to be cured of the virus.

While this method appears promising, it is extremely risky and only suitable for patients with cancer and HIV. In this treatment, doctors must break down a person’s immune system using chemotherapy or radiation and rebuild it with another person’s cells. The hope is that the process treats both the HIV and the cancer within a patient. Scientists warn that this process is unethical and likely fatal in people who do not have potentially terminal cancer along with the virus.

Dr. Deborah Persaud, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that while this breakthrough is exciting, it is not a “feasible strategy” for everyone, though it can hopefully help a handful of people per year.