[ad_1]
Timothy Ray Brown, the first person in the world to be cured of HIV infection, is terminally ill with cancer, the Associated Press reported.
Brown, who was called the “Berlin Patient” because he was living in the German capital when he underwent treatment for the virus twelve years ago, was saved by a transplant from a donor with rare natural resistance to the AIDS virus. For years, it was thought that the transplant would cure him of leukemia and AIDS, but the cancer has returned. There is no evidence that the HIV virus is attacking you again.
Leukemia also occurred last year with multiple metastases, Brown, 54, said in an interview with a hospice in Palm Springs, California, where he lives.
“Timothy has shown that HIV can be treated, but that’s not what inspires me,” said Dr. Stephen Dix, an AIDS specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who worked with Brown after his treatment to develop Treatment AIDS.
“We took parts of his gut, we took parts of his lymph nodes. Every time we asked him to do something, he invariably responded with amazing mercy,” Dix said.
Brown, an American, worked as a translator in Berlin in the 1990s when he found out he was infected with HIV. In 2006 he was diagnosed with leukemia.
Dr. Gero Höter, a specialist in the treatment of blood cancer at the University of Berlin, is convinced that Brown has a chance to defeat leukemia with a bone marrow transplant. It also suggests that a transplant from a donor with a genetic mutation that makes him resistant to the HIV virus will help Brown and AIDS.
Donors with such a mutation are extremely rare, and transplants are risky. Doctors must destroy the patient’s immune system with chemotherapy and radiation, then transplant the donor cells and hope they build a new immune system for the patient.
Brown’s first transplant in 2007 was successful, but only partially. The HIV virus appears to be disappearing, but not the leukemia. In March 2008, he underwent a second transplant from the same donor and it worked against leukemia.
So all of Brown’s HIV tests came back negative. Participate in AIDS conferences where therapies are discussed.
“He’s like an ambassador of hope,” said his partner, Tim Hofgen.
A second man, Adam Castilejo, dubbed the “London patient” until he revealed his identity this year, is also believed to have been cured in 2016 with a transplant.
[ad_2]
