Spanish medical institutions announced the beginning of a pioneering clinical test to eradicate the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) with a genetic mutation of blood from the umbilical cord, known as CCR5 Delta 32.
The National Organization of Transplants and the Spanish Society of Hematology came up with the procedure, consisting in a transplant
from the identification of 157 units of blood with that mutation.
For that, the public Blood Banks of Umbilical Cord made the typification of over 25 thousand umbilical cords of high quality cells out of the 60 thousand stored by those institutions.
According to the specialized publication Doctors and Patients, it is a previous case before the first clinical essay of its kind in the world which they trust to start between next December and January at the Hospital Puerta de Hierro-Majadahonda of Madrid
The journal says the director of the National Transplants Organization (NTO), Rafael Matesanz, confirmed recently that it is about using a genetic cell mutation of blood stem cells of very low prevalence among Spaniards.
Matezans said the cords CCR5 Delta32 are an authentic peculiarity, as the experts calculated it is present only in one percent of the world population, but in Spain, its prevalence is 0.6 percent.
The senior researcher of the Project, Rafael Duarte, explained that the test is base don the elimination of HIV in a patient in 2013 in Barcelona, through a transplant of blood from a cord with that genetic variant, made for the first time in the world.
The objective is to validate the experience of the patient of Barcelona, understand the factors that determine the healing and generate the first scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of the blood of cord CCR5 Delta32, explained Duarte.
This test will be carried out in five adult patients with infection HIV and indication of blood stem cells transplant allogeneic for suffering from leuchemia, linfoma or another neoplasia of the blood and lacking a family donor.
Participants will have a clinical follow-up and lab tests done post-transplant for a minimum of 12 months.
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