Validation of the Accuracy of Self-Reported ABO Blood Types in the Japan Nurses’ Health Study

Lobna Alkebsi,Yoko Onizuka,Yuki Ideno,Kunihiko Hayashi,Junko Nakajima-Shimada,Hiroshi Ohnishi,Yasunori Sato

doi:10.31557/apjcp.2019.20.3.789

Abstract

Background:The associations between ABO blood type and risk of diseases including cancer have been reported from epidemiological studies. Self-reporting is one of the most widely used methods of collecting the ABO blood type information. Verifying the accuracy of self-reporting is important to consider measurement errors. We aimed to conduct validation of self-reported ABO blood types in the Japan Nurses’ Health Study (JNHS), which is a large prospective cohort study.Methods:The concordance rate between self-reported and serologically or genetically inferred ABO blood groups was investigated for a subsample of 41 subjects from the Gunma Nurses’ Health Study, which was a pilot cohort study that preceded the JNHS. The presence of antibodies to A or B antigens in serum (serological test) and allele types of the ABO gene (genotyping test) were determined by using frozen blood samples that were preserved for approximately 7 years. ABO blood types were determined from these tests and compared with self-reported data.Results:All of the nurses reported that their ABO blood groups were concordant with those determined by a serological and/or genotyping test. Self-reported ABO blood types of 35 of 38 (92.1%) participants were consistent with the results from serological typing, while the answers of three participants were not. In these three participants, ABO genotypes that were inferred from genotyping of three single nucleotide polymorphisms in ABO loci perfectly matched with their self-reported ABO types, and all of these were O-type.Conclusions:Japanese health professionals report their blood type with a high degree of accuracy. Special attention should be paid to the O-type group in serological analysis of blood samples that have been preserved for several years in longitudinal studies.

Highlights

The associations between ABO blood type and risk of diseases, such as infectious diseases (Fry et al, 2008), type 2 diabetes (Qi et al, 2010), coronary heart disease (He et al, 2012), cancer (Zhang et al, 2014), and gastroduodenal ulcers (Alkebsi et al, 2018), have been reported from epidemiological studies
All of the nurses reported that their ABO blood groups were concordant with those determined by a serological and/or genotyping test
This study examined the accuracy of self-reported ABO blood types of a large prospective cohort study, the Japan Nurses’ Health Study (JNHS), by using subsamples from a pilot study (GNHS)

Summary

Introduction

The associations between ABO blood type and risk of diseases, such as infectious diseases (Fry et al, 2008), type 2 diabetes (Qi et al, 2010), coronary heart disease (He et al, 2012), cancer (Zhang et al, 2014), and gastroduodenal ulcers (Alkebsi et al, 2018), have been reported from epidemiological studies. Blood samples are sometimes collected and preserved for many years in prospective cohort studies to allow for future nested case–control research using these preserved samples In such studies, the ABO blood type may be determined using preserved blood samples by laboratory tests. Knowledge on the validity of the ABO blood type as determined by a DNA genotyping test or serological test for preserved samples is becoming increasingly important. We aimed to conduct validation of self-reported ABO blood types in the Japan Nurses’ Health Study (JNHS), which is a large prospective cohort study. Methods: The concordance rate between self-reported and serologically or genetically inferred ABO blood groups was investigated for a subsample of 41 subjects from the Gunma Nurses’ Health Study, which was a pilot cohort study that preceded the JNHS. Special attention should be paid to the O-type group in serological analysis of blood samples that have been preserved for several years in longitudinal studies

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