AIDS specialists are interested in the Boston patients because they offer new insights into how the immune system can be used to attack the virus.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it was “conceivable and maybe even likely” that their H.I.V. was permanently gone.
If so, he said, it would show that it is not necessary to find a matching donor who had the delta-32 mutation.
Dr. Deeks, the AIDS researcher in California, said the cases raised the question of when to say an H.I.V. patient has been “cured.”
“Should we wait six months to see if the virus rebounds?” he asked. “Or will we have to wait up to five years, as oncologists tend to do with cancer?”
Dr. Barré-Sinoussi, of the International AIDS Society, said she might eventually prefer to adopt the term oncologists use: “in remission.”