MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – Ten transplant patients treated at three New Hampshire hospitals may have received tissue stolen from a dead body, the state said Wednesday.

Greg Moore, a spokesman for the state health department, identified the hospitals as Elliot and Catholic Medical Center in Manchester and Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon.

Initially, Catholic Medical Center confirmed that one of its patients received questionable tissue through a supply chain that included a Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J.

The company’s owner has been charged with carving up cadavers and selling stolen tissue without testing it for disease.

Earlier, three people said they were notified they got questionable tissue through the same channels during operations at Elliot.

By Wednesday afternoon, Moore said six patients who had been treated at the Lebanon hospital had been notified. The health department set up a hotline for transplant patients to call with questions. Moore said the 10 patients have been or will be tested for two strains of HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis.

The tissue was recalled after a Food and Drug Administration investigation, but it was too late for some patients.

They include Cindy Rossiter of Brookline, who said she is sick that a small bone implanted in her neck may have been diseased. She’s been tested once, with negative results, but wants to be tested again.

“I’ll be real blunt. The first thing I wanted to do if it would have been possible was to take the bone out of my neck,” she told WMUR-TV.

She said she was told in December the bone came from Biomedical Tissue Services, which sent it to Regeneration Technologies in Alachua, Fla., for processing.

Elliot Hospital said the hospital and the public rely on the FDA to screen and regulate the companies involved.

Elliot officials said two of their three patients have tested negative for disease. The third patient is scheduled for testing.

Catholic Medical Center said it has followed up with the patient who received a transplant.

The FDA said it has notified all doctors who may have used the questionable tissue and bones. The agency says it is up to doctors whether to notify patients, however.

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State hotline: (603) 271-4496.