PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Dahlén, Torsten
AU  - Clements, Mark
AU  - Zhao, Jingcheng
AU  - Olsson, Martin L
AU  - Edgren, Gustaf
TI  - An agnostic study of associations between ABO and RhD blood group and phenome-wide disease risk
AID  - 10.1101/2021.01.28.428569
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.01.28.428569
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/30/2021.01.28.428569.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/30/2021.01.28.428569.full
AB  - There are multiple known associations between the ABO and RhD blood groups and disease. However, no systematic population-based studies elucidating associations between a large number of disease states and blood group have been conducted. Using SCANDAT3-S, a comprehensive nationwide blood donation-transfusion database, we modelled outcomes for 1,217 disease categories including 70 million person-years of follow-up, accruing from 5.1 million unique individuals. We discovered 49 and 1 associations between a disease and ABO and RhD blood group, respectively, after adjustment for multiple testing. We identified new associations such as kidney stones and blood group B as compared to O. We also expanded previous knowledge on other associations such as pregnancy-induced hypertension and blood group A and AB as compared to O and RhD positive as compared to negative. Our findings generate strong further support for previously known associations, but also indicate new interesting relations.