A patient diagnosed with AIDS at the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona will personally control the disease without having taken any type of treatment for more than 15 years.
It has been registered as a unique case in the world and not at all related to stem cell transplants as happened in patients in London and Berlin.
The patient has been referred to as patient “Barcelona”, as her identity is being kept anonymous. This case opens the door to research to determine if it is possible to replicate this natural protective mechanism in other patients. Y is a giant step towards curing AIDS.
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona explains the case
Hospital specialists explain that what has allowed the patient to stabilize for so long with an undetectable viral load and even without taking any medication, has been her immune system.
He has been a very particular case, as he caught the virus 15 years ago and started the disease very quickly.
What has been detected so far is that infected people take years for the virus to wake up. Therefore, it is assumed that it can infect others without knowing it.
Once the patient “Barcelona” was diagnosed, she was included in a clinical trial conducted at the Hospital.
She was immediately given antiretroviral treatment for nine months, which isthe standard for AIDS management, as well as several interventions with an immunosuppressant, cyclosporine A.
Very few people are able to maintain undetectable viral loads without medication.
When patient “Barcelona” was taken off antiretroviral treatment in the middle of the clinical trial in which she participated, the rest of the participants showed signs of the virus multiplying in their bodies.
But this patient was the only one who did not have the multiplication of the virus and was stabilized during all these years.
And all thanks to the abundance of two types of lymphocytes: natural killer cells (first line of defense that are part of the innate immune system) and CD8+ T-lymphocytes, key agents in defending cells from bacteria and viruses.
The great novelty of the work is that at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona they were able to characterize the cells that manage to control the virus.
Gateway to extending functional AIDS cure
Achieving a permanent cure for AIDS is something that only occurs in a very small group of people who are called post-treatment controllers.
The challenge now is to understand the mechanisms that occur in this patient and see if it is possible to replicate them in other patients. If successful, a functional cure for AIDS could be extended: patients will still have the virus, but their immune system will be able to control its replication.
