Association between ABO blood groups and clinical outcome of coronavirus disease 2019: Evidence from two cohorts

  1. Xianfei Zeng
  2. Hongyan Fan
  3. Dongxue Lu
  4. Fang Huang
  5. Xi Meng
  6. Zhuo Li
  7. Mei Tang
  8. Jing Zhang
  9. Nannan Liu
  10. Zhixin Liu
  11. Jingya Zhao
  12. Wen Yin
  13. Qunxing An
  14. Xijing Zhang
  15. Xingbin Hu

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Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become the third most common coronavirus that causes large-scale infections worldwide. The correlations between pathogen susceptibility and blood type distribution have attracted attention decades ago. The current retrospective study aimed to examine the correlation between blood type distribution and SARS-CoV-2 infection, progression, and prognosis in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). With 265 patients from multiple medical centers and two established cohorts, we found that the blood type A population was more sensitive to SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, the blood type distribution was not relevant to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), acute kidney injury (AKI), and mortality in COVID-19 patients. These findings are indicative of coping with the great threat since it probed the relationship between blood types and ARDS, AKI, and mortality, in addition to susceptibility in COVID-19 patients.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.15.20063107: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (version 22.0) for Windows.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The present study has several limitations. First, it is not feasible to use a prospective cohort to determine when patients with mild symptoms progress to the critically ill stage, since the epidemic situation was very serious at that time and all the resources were in used for emergency care. Second, there are no existing wild cohorts with available demographic and clinical characteristics that can be used as a reference group because patients who developed fever without SARS-CoV-2 infection were not identified during the corresponding period. Thus, it is impossible to analyze the correlation between blood type distribution and COVID-19 using a multiple-factor model logistic model. We had to use the chi-square test and calculate the OR value to provide an estimate. This strategy cannot rule out the possibility that blood type is the only factor associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and progression. Our observations were only based on the results of the epidemic data analysis. The biological evidence between blood type and SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and progression requires further cellular and molecular investigation. The current retrospective study of two cohorts confirmed that blood type A populations are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the outcomes including ARDS, AKI, and death are poor irrespective of ABO blood group distribution in critically ill patients with COVID-19, although blood type O sufferers are unlikely to progress into the critical stage af...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.15.20063107v1 on medRxiv