Phenotypic Profile of Kidd Blood Group System in Northern Pakistani Population

Abstract

OBJECTIVETo investigate the phenotypic profile of Kidd blood group system in Northern Pakistani population.STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: The research was conducted at department of immunohaematology, Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT) Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from Dec 2022 to Jun 2023.METHODOLOGY: The study included 280 donors of all ages and both genders fulfilling the WHO Healthy Volunteer Donor criteria for blood donation. Individuals were included in this study while individuals not fulfilling the criteria were excluded from this study.. Blood grouping was performed by tube agglutination method and for data analysis version 23.0 of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used.
 RESULTS: The frequencies of A, B, AB, and O antigens were (23.9%), (33.6%), (10.0%), and (32.5%), respectively among all the 280 participants while the frequencies of Kidd Jka and Jkb were 73.2% and 75.4% respectively. The expression of phenotypic profile was Jk ( a+b+) in 49.6%, Jk (a-b+) in 25.7%, Jk (a+b-) in 23.6%, and Jk (a-b-) in 1.1%.
 CONCLUSION: Kidd antigen was found in a significant proportion of our donor population which arises the need for undertaking extended antigen typing for this minor blood group as a routine in our blood banks to be able to provide antigen free blood units to chronically transfused, pregnant and anaemic individuals for prevention of delayed haemolytic transfusion reactions.