Lack of Any Relationship between ABO and Rh Blood Groups and Clinicopathological Features in Patients with Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors: Turkish Oncology Group

Background: An association between the ABO blood group and the risk of certain malignancies, includingpancreatic and gastric cancer, has been reported previously. However, it is unclear whether this association is validfor gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). In this study, ABO blood groups and the Rh factor were investigatedin a series of GIST cases. Material and
Methods: In 162 patients with GIST, blood group and Rh factor wereexamined and compared with a control group of 3,022,883 healthy volunteer blood donors of the Turkish RedCrescent between 2004 and 2011. The relationship of blood groups with tumor size, mitotic activity, and age werealso evaluated.
Results: Overall, the ABO blood group and Rh factor distributions of the 162 patients with GISTwere similar to those of the general population. There were no significant differences between both ABO bloodtypes and Rh factor in terms of tumor size, mitotic activity, and age.
Conclusion: This is the first study reportedon this issue. In our study, we didn’t find any relationship between GIST and ABO blood group and Rh factor.However further studies with larger number of patients are needed to establish the role of blood groups in thispopulation.