Researchers report possible HIV

Researchers report possible HIV infection cure; others cite dangers

By Tom Watkins, CNN

December 15, 2010 -- Updated 0910 GMT (1710 HKT)

Demonstrators march in Vienna, Austria, as part of the 18th International AIDS Conference on July 20, 2010.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A Berlin man has been off anti-AIDS medication for 3-1/2 years
• But the stem-cell transplant credited for ridding him of HIV is costly, dangerous
• "This is probably a cure, but it comes at a bit of a price," says one AIDS doctor

(CNN) -- Researchers in Germany are reporting that they may have cured a man of HIV infection. If true, that would represent a scientific advance, but not necessarily a treatment advance, said researchers familiar with the work.

In the study, published last week online in the journal Blood, researchers at Charite-University Medicine Berlin treated an HIV-infected man who also had acute myeloid leukemia -- a cancer of the immune system -- by wiping out his own immune system with high-dose chemotherapy and radiation and giving him a stem-cell transplant. Stem cells are immature cells that can mature into blood cells.

At the time of the transplant, which occurred in February 2007, he stopped taking anti-HIV medications.