MOST UNUSUAL BLOOD

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31560, 23 December 1967, Page 5

MOST UNUSUAL BLOOD

(By JAJE E. BRODY) A yotteg soldier and his sister have been identifie i as two of three persons in the world k own to have a rare tvje of Bombay blood, wiich is also extremely rare. Only 30 persons in the world hat been found to have Bofcbay blood, first identified h a patient in Bombay. This flood contains antibodies to tree common blood types—A,|B and O. Consequently, arsons with Bombay blood ca safely receive transfusion only of Bombay blood. The soller was incorrectly typed as fcod group O when admitted | basic training at • Fort Dix.kew Jersey. If he had been sounded in combat, and needfl a transfusion, his > chances (igetting the proper

blood wmjd have been slim. Fortunftly, the error was caught ii time, after the soldier Wied a pint of his blood foi a week-end pass during a Red Cross blood drive in amp. Ce» Destroyed The id Cross also mistakenlytyped the soldier’s blood ajo. But when the blood ached Temple Universitylblood bank in Philadelphia was correctly typed as a nit unusual kind. The*pldier’s case was describe/by Dr Lyndall Molthan,*rector of the university’splood bank, to the annuameeting of the American dissociation of Blood Bannt the Americana Hotel. riKlolthan explained that peijLs with type O blood hawantibodies that destroy thwells of types A and B, ty» A persons have antibAs against B and type B p«ns have anti-A antiJes. antibodies are proteins that ■ produced in response to ■stances, called antigens, I iftch are foreign to the body, ■e A and B antigens in the Jbe O person are examples. ■ Type O persons can receive lily type O blood, type A perl>ns can receive type A or kpe O and type B persons [an receive type B or type O. However, persons with any rind of Bombay blood—who lave antibodies to A, B and O —cannot accept any of these ypes without endangering heir lives by having a severe transfusion reaction. What made the soldier’s jlood so rare, Dr Molthan said n an interview, was that in iddition to containing anti- \ antibodies, it contained a small amount of the A antigen. Aside from the soldier’s sister and a nurse in Czechoslovakia, other persons with Bombay blood have no A, B >r O substance.

This sister was identified as having the rare blood after the Temple University blood bank tracked down her family and had each member carefully typed. The sister has an additional complication she is Rh-negative and can receive only Rh-negative Bombay blood. Her brother is Rh-posi-tive.

As soon as the Army was told of its error, the soldier was reassigned as a personnel clerk.—Copyright, 1967, “New York Times” News Service.