Gene therapy has helped 10 men with a form of the bleeding disorder hemophilia produce a critical blood clotting factor. This could eliminate the need for tedious and costly standard treatments, researchers report.
While saying the one-time gene therapy was an ideal treatment goal because of its effects, the researchers stopped short of calling it a cure for hemophilia B since it’s unclear if the benefits will be permanent.
Also, experts said the early stage research needs to be reproduced in larger trials.
But the experimental gene therapy produced “a really dramatic life change” for the men in the study, said study lead author Dr. Lindsey George, a hematologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“It really freed up these men to kind of live a normal life,” George said. “It meant they could wake up and go about their day and not live in fear of having bleeding events.”
Hemophilia arises from an inherited gene mutation that impedes the ability to produce normal levels of a blood clotting factor. This leaves patients vulnerable to spontaneous bleeding or excessive bleeding from injuries. The disorder has two major forms: hemophilia A, which affects about 80 percent of all patients, and hemophilia B.
Hemophilia B occurs in about 1 in 30,000 boys and men, George said. Because the recessive gene disorder is linked to the X chromosome, women can be carriers but are unaffected by the condition. Standard treatment involves weekly infusions of a manufactured clotting factor to prevent bleeding problems.
The new research was funded by pharmaceutical companies Spark Therapeutics and Pfizer.