Publication:

Study of distribution of ABO blood groups in ß-thalassemia patients

Background ß-thalassemia is an inherited hematological disorder caused by reduced or absent synthesis of ß globin chains of the hemoglobin which causes hemolysis and impair erythropoiesis. Affected children thus require regular lifelong blood transfusions. Blood group is one of the important and comparatively known parameter today which exhibits a strong correlation with some common diseases like cardiovascular diseases, gastric cancer, HIV infection etc. Aim of this study hence was to study relation between ABO blood groups and ß-thalassemia and to study complications in each blood groups to make it easy to predict the type of population which is more prone or resistant to ß-thalassemia for understanding the regional demand of rare blood groups and to tide over the demands.

Methods This was a cross sectional, single centric, open labeled, observational study in which 100 patients of ß-thalassemia were screened for their ABO blood groups after permission from institutional ethics committee and informed consent from the patient.

Results Most common blood group in ß-thalassemia patient is O +ve. Post-disease complication is commonly seen with B +ve. Early onset of beta-thalassemia is seen in A +ve and B +ve. Late onset is seen with O +ve. Severity more with B –ve while O +ve shows disease in less severe form.

Conclusions On analysis, it was found that the most common blood group getting affected by the disease ß-thalassemia is O +ve with the same people having higher chances of family history of the same disease. Within the family members who have the positive history of the disease, most common was O +ve blood group again.