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By E.J. Mundell<\/b>
HealthDay Reporter<\/i><\/p>\n
TUESDAY, July 7, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
A Brazilian man could be the first person to achieve long-term remission from HIV<\/a> after treatment with a custom blend of antiviral drugs<\/a>, but experts not involved in the case are skeptical.<\/p>\n Blood tests don’t show any signs of lingering HIV<\/a> infection in the unidentified 35-year-old man, and he also doesn’t seem to have detectable antibodies to the virus, according to researchers at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, The New York Times<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n “Although still an isolated case, this might represent the first long-term HIV<\/a> remission” without a bone-marrow transplant, said the researchers, who presented the results at AIDS<\/a> 2020, an annual conference.<\/p>\n Only two people have ever been confirmed cured of HIV<\/a>, both after undergoing bone-marrow transplants for cancer<\/a>, the Times<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n The most interesting aspect of this case is the absence of antibodies to HIV<\/a>, according to Dr. Steve Deeks, an HIV<\/a> researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), who was not involved in the case.<\/p>\n “There will be a lot of buzz, a lot of controversy about this part — everyone’s going to be skeptical,” he told the Times<\/i>. “Am I skeptical? Of course. Am I intrigued? Absolutely.”<\/p>\n Deeks said the only way to know if the patient is truly virus-free is for independent labs to confirm the Brazilian researchers’ test results. Even then, it won’t be clear whether being HIV-free is due to the antiviral treatment combination the man received.<\/p>\n The Brazilian team has offered to send samples for confirmatory tests to other labs.<\/p>\n In addition to standard cocktail therapy, he received three antiretroviral drugs<\/a> for 48 weeks, including maraviroc<\/a> and nicotinamide, which are believed to lure HIV out of its hiding spots in the body so that other drugs can kill it, the Times<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n Nicotinamide may also boost the immune system, according to Dr. Ricardo Diaz, a member of the research team.<\/p>\n “These are exciting findings, but they’re very preliminary,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an HIV expert at UCSF and one of the organizers of AIDS<\/a> 2020, told the Times<\/i>.<\/p>\n No drug “has worked so far in terms of long-term remission” of HIV, she noted. “I’m not even sure this has worked. It’s one patient, so I think we can’t say we can achieve remission this way.”<\/p>\n ![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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