Association between the ABO blood group and risk of common cancers

Objective: To investigate the association between five common cancers in western China population and ABO blood group.

Methods: Using the data from West China Hospital, we retrospectively reviewed 5012 patients with five common cancers. Blood groups were obtained from medical records. The control group was represented by 1979 health check-up examinees. The distributions of ABO blood types of certain cancer patients were investigated to assess the possible correlation between certain cancers and the ABO blood groups. A further meta-analysis was performed based on the studied results to find potential correlation between the ABO blood types and the risk of diseases.

Results: A 24.5% increased risk was found in gastric cancer cases with blood type A when compared with those with blood type O (OR = 1.245, 95% CI 1.014 to 1.529, P = 0.036) from our data analysis. This association was further confirmed by the meta-analysis of nine studies (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.12 to 1.39).

Conclusions: Our data suggested that blood type A was associated with gastric cancer.