Is occult HBV infection in hemodialysis setting marked by presence of isolated antibodies to HBcAg and HCV?
Occult HBV infection is frequent among hemodialysis patients in our geographical area, particularly correlated to the presence of isolated anti-HBcAg and anti-HCV antibodies. Thus, the presence of isolated anti-HBcAg should prompt the clinician to evaluate a possible occult HBV infection especially if anti-HCV antibodies are also detectable; this condition, in fact, seems to strongly predict the detection of HBV DNA.
SDSCs could be isolated from human osteoarthritic synovium. Supplementation with BMP-2 significantly promoted the in vitro TGF-β3-induced chondrogenic differentiation of SDSCs.