Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS

Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS

news.yahoo.com

An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said Wednesday.

While researchers — and the doctors themselves — caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

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At last a breakthrough!

It is heartening to see that there is a potential way to not merely save millions of lives, but to completely cure them of this terrible disease. While this procedure is still being studied for specific treatment of HIV, it appears to be a promising step in the right direction.

It should be noted that this is indeed a dangerous procedure for the patient to endure.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

Medical breakthroughs have to start somewhere.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 11/12/2008 by maria_stardust]

Keep your fingers crossed, hopefully this is a break through many have been waiting for. This sounds like it could be the real deal.

Looking forward to how this progresses.
Hopefully this will prove to be a breakthrough towards less dangerous procedures.