Association of ABO blood group with COVID-19 severity, acute phase reactants and mortality

  1. Uzma Ishaq
  2. Asmara Malik
  3. Jahanzeb Malik
  4. Asad Mehmood
  5. Azhar Qureshi
  6. Talha Laique
  7. Syed Muhammad Jawad Zaidi
  8. Muhammad Javaid
  9. Abdul Sattar Rana

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Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the ongoing pandemic with multitude of manifestations and association of ABO blood group in South-East Asian population needs to be explored.

Methods

It was a retrospective study of patients with COVID-19. Blood group A, B, O, and AB were identified in every participant, irrespective of their RH type and allotted groups 1, 2,3, and 4, respectively. Correlation between blood group and lab parameters was presented as histogram distributed among the four groups. Multivariate regression and logistic regression were used for inferential statistics.

Results

The cohort included 1067 patients: 521 (48.8%) participants had blood group O as the prevalent blood type. Overall, 10.6% COVID-19-related mortality was observed at our center. Mortality was 13.9% in blood group A, 9.5% in group B, 10% in group C, and 10.2% in AB blood group (p = 0.412). IL-6 was elevated in blood group A (median [IQR]: 23.6 [17.5,43.8]), Procalcitonin in blood group B (median [IQR]: 0.54 [0.3,0.7]), D-dimers and CRP in group AB (median [IQR]: 21.5 [9,34]; 24 [9,49], respectively). Regarding severity of COVID-19 disease, no statistical difference was seen between the blood groups. Alteration of the acute phase reactants was not positively associated with any specific blood type.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this investigation did not show significant association of blood groups with severity and of COVID-19 disease and COVID-19-associated mortality.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0261432
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.19.21255738: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: This was a retrospective investigation conducted at Advanced Diagnostics and Liver Center after approval from the ethical review board of our institute (ID: ADC/17/20) according to the Declaration of Helsinki.
    Consent: All participants or their guardians gave written informed consent before data collection.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains
    SentencesResources
    Group A, B, O, and AB were identified in every participant, irrespective of their RH type and allotted groups 1, 2,3, and 4 respectively.
    AB
    suggested: RRID:BDSC_203)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis was carried out with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA).
    Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)
    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:
    There were several limitations to this study. First, it was a single-center study and the retrospective nature limits the control of confounding factors. Second, due to the limited sample size of COVID-19 in the early stages, the sample size included in this study was not very large. Third, as it represented the population of one province, so a regional selection bias needs to be considered. Third, other comorbidities might influence the severity of the disease.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.19.21255738v1 on medRxiv