In New York, a patient that suffered from HIV was cured by umbilical cord stem cell transplant, being the first woman after three cases in men.
The woman, who is middle-aged, has leukemia and HIV but she has been free of the virus since 2017, and she identifies herself as mixed race.
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Unlike the other patients; the Dusseldorf patient, the late Berlin patient and the London patient, the woman was carried out using HIV-resistant stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood, instead of adult cells from matched donors.
Cells from the umbilical cord blood were infused together with stem cells from one of the patient’s relatives to increase the chances of success of the procedure.
The doctors used a mixture of stem cells from a matched relative of the patient and cells from the umbilical cord blood gives the cord blood cells a good start.
