Re: Weird hepatitis B test results

Rich Wales wrote:
David Rind wrote:

> People who cleared hep B a long time ago frequently lose
> the surface antibody and thus show core antibody as their
> only remaining marker.

How long might "a long time ago" be in this context? Five years?
20 years? More?

Five years is probably too short. This can certainly occur over 20-30 years, and probably over some shorter time frames.

> This is incredibly common in people infected with HIV (it
> may be the most common hep B serologic pattern in HIV),
> but happens frequently in people without HIV as well.

AFAIK, I don't have HIV. Amongst many other things, if I had had
HIV in 2001, presumably the blood bank would have detected it in
my donation and told me -- and I would presumably also be very,
VERY ill by now.

I was giving this as an example of a group where hep B infection is common and this pattern is seen a lot, not suggesting that any individual with this pattern is likely to be infected with HIV.

There is clearly debate about how often isolated hep B core ab is a false positive result, and I think the frequency of the pattern in a group at extremely high risk for hep B, such as those infected with HIV, suggests that it is not likely that it's really a false positive that often.

--
David Rind
drind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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