Trends of ABO and Rh phenotypes in transfusion-dependent patients in Pakistan

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of ABO and Rh phenotypes in the general Pakistan population. This information could be used to help reduce the rate of alloimmunization in patients with blood disorders, such as thalassemia major, who require frequent blood transfusions. A total of 242 patients with blood disorders requiring frequent blood transfusions were enrolled in the study. ABO and Rh typing was performed on samples from these patients using tube and gel methods. Of these 242 patients, 146 (60.4%) were male and 96 (39.6%) were female. The prevalence of ABO and D phenotypes was as follows: group O, D+ (38.8%), group O, D-(2.5%), group B, D+ (32.2%), group A, D+ (17.4%), group A, D-(1.7%), and group AB, D+ (7.4%). Of the 242 patients, 232 (95.8%) were D+ and 10 (4.2%) were D-. The most prevalent Rh antigen was found to be e (97%), followed by D (95%), C (89.6%), c (62.8%), and lastly, E (22.6%). The prevalence of Rh phenotypes was: R 1 R 1 (37.7%), R 1 r (33.4%), R 1 R 2 (19.4%), R 2 r (5.2%), and rr (4.3 %). All of the D-patients were rr. In our study, the highest prevalence of ABO phenotypes was group O and the most prevalent Rh antigen was e. Rh phenotyping, along with antibody screening and identification should be performed prior to transfusion of patients requiring multiple transfusions to reduce and possibly prevent the rate of alloimmunization. Immunohematology 2016;32:170-173.

Prevalence of Rh and K phenotypes among blood donors from different ethnicities in Samtah (Southwestern Region) Saudi Arabia

“…In the current study, high frequency of C was noted among Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani blood donors. This high frequency of C antigen in Indian and Pakistani donors is in agreement with other studies conducted in India and Pakistan (Anwar et al, 2016;Karim et al, 2015;Mahmood et al, 2018;Mangwana et al, 2020;Pahuja et al, 2020;Sharma et al, 2013). Marked variation was noted in the prevalence of c antigen found in this study and other studies conducted in Egypt, Pakistan, and India as shown in Table 2 (Anwar et al, 2016;Karim et al, 2015;Mahmood et al, 2018;Sharma et al, 2013;Swelem et al, 2018).…”

“…This high frequency of C antigen in Indian and Pakistani donors is in agreement with other studies conducted in India and Pakistan (Anwar et al., 2016; Karim et al., 2015; Mahmood et al., 2018; Mangwana et al., 2020; Pahuja et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2013). Marked variation was noted in the prevalence of c antigen found in this study and other studies conducted in Egypt, Pakistan, and India as shown in Table 2 (Anwar et al., 2016; Karim et al., 2015; Mahmood et al., 2018; Sharma et al., 2013; Swelem et al., 2018). This finding shall be taken into consideration while utilizing blood units collected from Indian and Pakistani blood donors to type the blood for C and c antigens especially for patients with frequent blood transfusions.…”

“…Similarly, insignificant difference was observed in the frequencies of D antigen among overall population including Saudi and non‐Saudi blood donors with two other local studies conducted in Riyadh (Alalshaikh et al., 2021; Elsayid et al., 2017). Furthermore, the frequencies of D antigen found in this study and some other studies show similarities in Saudi, Pakistani (Anwar et al., 2016) and Sudanese (Shahata et al., 2012) population while slightly lower frequencies in Egyptians (Swelem et al., 2018) and Indians (Sharma et al., 2013). The variation in the current study with other local studies (Alshehri et al., 2021; Elsayid et al., 2017; Owaidah et al., 2020) could be attributed to the tribal variation and study participants including non‐Saudis.…”