CROI 2022: One person remains undetectable without HIV drugs almost four years after using an antibody-based therapy

The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2022) yesterday (February 15) included a widely-reported study of a woman apparently cured of HIV after a stem-cell transplant. The same conference session also heard about another study participant for whom scientists are avoiding the word ‘cure’, but who has been off HIV therapy with an undetectable viral load for over 3.7 years after he was given a combination of a broadly-neutralising antibody and a drug that prevents HIV-infected cells becoming latent and hiding from the immune system.

As with many such studies, this was an isolated case; he was one out of 59 people in the study, and only one out of the 20 who remained undetectable after stopping his antiretroviral therapy (ART) in what’s called an analytical treatment interruption (ATI). But six other people were able to stay off ART for more than 12 weeks.

While the antibody therapy directly reduced the number of actively-infected CD4 cells that were producing virus, it also, in people sensitive to it, produced a considerably higher proportion of CD8 cells that were sensitive to HIV and therefore capable of killing off other infected cells.

Read the full story at Aidsmap.

All Aidsmap reports from CROI 2022.

SEE ALSO:

• HIV i-Base: CROI 2022: Targetting reservoir with ART + bNAb 3BNC117 + romidepsin maintained undetectable viral load off-ART for 3.7 years in one case