ABO blood group and secretor status in relation to clinical characteristics of peptic ulcers

Abstract

EDITORIAL SYNOPSIS A large series of peptic ulcer patients divided into groups according to those who bled, those who required operation, and those who had neither bleeding nor operation showed a dissociation between ABO blood group and secretor status. Patients who had undergone operation showed a higher proportion of non-secretors for both gastric and duodenal ulcers than others. Ulcer patients who bled showed an increased frequency of blood group 0 compared with the others, but there was no difference as between the operation and non-operation groups. A careful statistical analysis of results and review of previous work on this subject makes the findings in this paper important, particularly as a possible guide to prognosis. Possible relationships between genetic factors and ulcer prognosis have received attention since the discovery by Aird, Bentall, Mehigan, and Roberts (1954) that there is an association between blood group 0 and liability to peptic ulcer.