Blood groups ABO and Rh (D) factor in the rheumatic diseases.

The researches of Cohen, Boyd, Goldwasser, Cathcart, and Heisler (1963) on a small number of patients with chronic joint disease of different clinical types showed that there was no association between the ABO blood groups and the chronic rheumatic diseases, but that there was a deficiency of Rh factor. Kornstad, Kornstad, and Guldberg (1965), examining 217 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, found the distribution of ABO groups to be about the same as in a control group; the frequency of Rh factor was 12 per cent. compared with 16 per cent. in the controls, a difference which is not statistically significant. Macafee (1965), reporting on 431 cases of rheumatic heart disease and on the statistical data previously published, found an excess of group A, and observed that the frequency of "non-secretors", ABO (H), was higher in cases of rheumatic fever.