Prevalence of Red Cell Blood Group Antigens Among Egyptian Population in Comparison with Other Ethnic Groups

Abstract
Background: Blood group antigens differ in their distri-bution among different ethnic populations, knowledge of the different blood antigen frequency in a population is important for safe blood transfusion, as cases of multi-transfused patients with multiple allo-antibodies, where antigen-negative blood should be provided.
Aim of the Work: Is to detect the prevalence of red cell blood group antigens among Egyptian population and compare it with other ethnic groups. This information can be used to establish the correlation between blood group genotype and phenotype, and to help managing cases of alloimmunization in multiply transfused patients.
Methodology: A total number of 3219 regular blood donors in NBTC and the blood bank of the National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, were subjected to extended Rh system phenotyping (D, C, E, c and e), and to phenotyping for other blood group systems. Colum Agglutination Technique was used to test the red cells of the blood donors.
Results: Our study showed that in the Rh system, the D+(84%), e+(97.4%), C+(67.5%) prevalence was close to Caucasians. The K antigen (8.23%) was also almost close to Caucasian, while the k antigen (99%) was equal to other ethnic population. The S and s antigens (56.77%, 86.1% respectively) were almost the same as that of Caucasian and Indian population. Duffy blood group was different as Fya (26.66%) and Fyb (48.87%) antigens results were unique to our studied population. The Lea (26.26%) antigen was almost the same as both Caucasians and African population. While the Jka (83.88%) antigen was close to the Indians population, the Jkb (58.75%), the Leb (46.49%) and the N (40.1%) antigens were unique to our studied group. The M antigen (78.99%) result was almost the same as Caucasian and Asian population.
Conclusion: The distribution of the blood group antigens among different races shows different findings. Knowledge of the prevalence of different blood group antigens in any given population is helpful in managing cases of alloimmuni-zation in multiply transfused patients.