Having cancer is awful. Being HIV positive is awful. Having cancer and HIV? Now that is just a double whammy of tragedy.
However, two HIV positive men with cancer seem to have gotten something of a lucky break. After receiving bone marrow transplants, scientists have been unable to detect any traces of HIV in their bodies. And this isn't a recent thing, either; they've been checking for two years.
MSNBC
By the way, that Berlin patient? He's been HIV free for five years. So yeah, that's pretty encouraging.
As the article mentions, it's far too soon to call this method a perfect cure for HIV. 3 people a be all, end all cure does not make, after all. A whole lot more testing needs to be done, and it take a while before we can be sure that this is permanent. Surprise side effects could always be discovered as well.
Still, this offers at least a glimmer of hope. Whatever happens next, I believe that this brings us just a little bit closer to dealing with the problem for good.
*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*
However, two HIV positive men with cancer seem to have gotten something of a lucky break. After receiving bone marrow transplants, scientists have been unable to detect any traces of HIV in their bodies. And this isn't a recent thing, either; they've been checking for two years.
The researchers are cautious in declaring the two men cured, but more than two years after receiving bone marrow transplants, HIV can't be detected anywhere in their bodies. These two new cases are reminiscent of the so-called "Berlin patient," the only person known to have been cured of infection from the human immunodeficiency virus.
These two cases, presented as a “late-breaker” finding on Thursday at the 19th annual International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., are among the reasons that scientists have been speaking so openly at the event about their hopes of finding a cure.
“Everyone knows about this ‘Berlin patient’. We wanted to see if a simpler treatment would do the same thing”, said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who oversaw the study.
By the way, that Berlin patient? He's been HIV free for five years. So yeah, that's pretty encouraging.
As the article mentions, it's far too soon to call this method a perfect cure for HIV. 3 people a be all, end all cure does not make, after all. A whole lot more testing needs to be done, and it take a while before we can be sure that this is permanent. Surprise side effects could always be discovered as well.
Still, this offers at least a glimmer of hope. Whatever happens next, I believe that this brings us just a little bit closer to dealing with the problem for good.
*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*