Will she become “the patient of Marseille”? A woman, aged around sixty, could be the eighth patient in the world to overcome HIV, and the first in France, public hospitals in Marseille reveal in a press release published Friday. She was diagnosed with HIV in 1999. “Despite effective antiretroviral treatments from 2010, she developed acute myeloid leukemia in 2020, hospitals report. In July 2020, an allogeneic bone marrow transplant helped treat his leukemia. »
The transplant in question involves selecting a donor who has a genetic mutation with the ability to never contract HIV. A process that requires a lot of time and is not without danger.
“The donor had a rare genetic mutation (Delta 32) on the CCR5 gene, preventing HIV from entering cells,” explains the AP-HM. To date, only 7 cases of functional cure of HIV after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, aimed at treating lymphoma or leukemia, have been reported worldwide. For 6 of them, the donor carried this same mutation.
The first case of recovery was announced in 2009 in Berlin, the second in London in 2019, and the third in Düsseldorf in 2023.
-After the transplant, the patient continued her antiretroviral treatment for three years. She stopped it in October 2023, then was followed on a “very regular” basis by her doctor in Marseille. Extensive virological examinations led to the conclusion that the virus was no longer present in his body.
The results of this case were presented at international congresses in Munich and Glasgow in 2024. “This advance, although not generalizable to all patients affected by HIV due to the burden of treatments associated with allograft, opens new perspectives for research on the virus,” concludes the Human Immunodeficiency Information and Care Center.
