Treatments & survivals

Treatments in development

Media reports in 2008 and a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 described the anecdotal case of an HIV-positive patient of a Berlin doctor, Gero Hütter. The patient, who had both acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and HIV infection, was said by some to be "functionally cured" of his HIV following a bone marrow transplant for AML. The bone marrow donor had been selected as homozygous for a CCR5-Δ32 mutation (which confers resistance to "almost all strains of HIV"). After 600 days without antiretroviral drug treatment, HIV levels in the patient's blood, bone marrow and bowel were below the limit of detection, although the authors note that the virus is likely present in other tissues. Researchers cautioned that it would be premature to consider this treatment a possible cure because of its anecdotal nature, the mortality risk associated with bone marrow transplants and other concerns.


HIV latent reservoir

Despite the success of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in controlling HIV infection and reducing HIV-associated mortality, current drug regimens are unable to completely eradicate HIV infection. Many people on HAART achieve suppression of HIV to levels below the limit of detection of standard clinical assays for many years. However, upon withdrawal of HAART, HIV viral loads rebound quickly with a concomitant decline in CD4+ T-Cells, which, in most cases, absent a resumption of treatment, leads to AIDS.
To successfully reproduce itself, HIV must convert its RNA genome to DNA, which is then imported into the host cell's nucleus and inserted into the host genome through the action of HIV integrase. Because HIV's primary cellular target, CD4+ T-Cells, function as the memory cells of the immune system, integrated HIV can remain dormant for the duration of these cell's lifetime. Memory T-Cells may survive for many years and possibly for decades. The latent HIV reservoir can be measured by co-culturing CD4+ T-Cells from infected patients with CD4+ T-Cells from uninfected donors and measuring HIV protein or RNA.

The failure of vaccine candidates to protect against HIV infection and progression to AIDS has led to a renewed focus on the biological mechanisms responsible for HIV latency. A limited period of therapy combining anti-retrovirals with drugs targeting the latent reservoir may one day allow for total eradication of HIV infection.