Clinicopathological Features of Patients with Malignant Mesothelioma in a Multicenter, Case-Control Study: No Role for ABO-Rh Blood Groups

Background: Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is an aggressive tumor of mesothelial surfaces. Previous studieshave observed an association between ABO blood groups and risk of certain malignancies, including pancreaticand gastric cancer; however, no information on any association with MM risk is available. The aim of this studywas to investigate possible associations amoong MM clinicopathological features and ABO blood groups and Rhfactor. Materials and
Methods: In 252 patients with MM, the ABO blood group and Rh factor were examined andcompared with the control group of 3,022,883 healthy volunteer blood donors of Turkish Red Crescent between2004 and 2011. The relationship of blood groups with various clinicopathological features were also evaluatedin the patient group.
Results: The median age was 55 (range: 27-86) and 61.5% of patients were male. While82.8% of patients had a history of exposure to asbestos, 60.7% of patients had a smoking history. Epithelioid(65.1%) was the most common histology and 18.7% of patients had mixed histology. Overall, the ABO bloodgroup distribution of the 252 patients with MM was comparable with the general population. The median overallsurvival (OS) was 14 months (95% confidence interval, 11.3-16.6 months). The median OS for A, B, AB, and Owere 11, 15, 16, and 15 months respectively (p=0.396). First line chemotherapy was administered to 118 patients.The median OS of patients on pemetrexed or gemcitabine was longer than patient who was not administeredchemotherapy [17 months (95%CI, 11.7-22.2) vs. 9 months (95%CI, 6.9-11.0); p<0.001].
Conclusions: The resultsof this study suggest that patients with MM can benefit from treatment with pemetrexed or gemcitabine incombination with cisplatin. We did not observe a statistically significant association between ABO blood groupand risk of MM.