[HN Gopher] 'Gwada negative': French scientists find new blood t...
___________________________________________________________________
'Gwada negative': French scientists find new blood type in woman
Author : spidersouris
Score : 127 points
Date : 2025-06-21 07:38 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lemonde.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lemonde.fr)
| ajb wrote:
| The OP is low on details. There is more in this article (in
| french): https://www.lindependant.fr/2025/06/21/il-ny-a-quelle-
| qui-es...
|
| Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list:
| https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the
| page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)
| xattt wrote:
| Neither article talks about whether this is a minor or a major
| antigen.
|
| Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen
| types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several
| transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a
| sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant
| reactions that can be life-threatening.
|
| Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants
| and premies, but this is way beyond my scope.
| yorwba wrote:
| With a single known case of somebody producing antibodies
| against the antigen, it might be a bit hard to say how many
| transfusions it typically takes to develop a sensitivity.
| JackFr wrote:
| I recently had major surgery and got two units of blood in
| during the operation and two more post-op. Post-op before I
| got the blood, they typed my blood again, and a nurse stayed
| in the room while I got the blood and I wondered why. This
| comment makes it clear.
| xattt wrote:
| Close observation for 15 minutes is typical for any blood
| transfusion. You do a set of pre-transfusion vitals, vitals
| when the blood hits the vein, vitals every 5 minutes until
| 15 minutes is up, vitals every 15 minutes until the blood
| is done. Ask any nurse why they hate running blood.
|
| Depending on the severity of the reaction, blood will
| either be stopped or the patient will be loaded up with
| Benadryl and Tylenol with the blood running at a slower
| rate.
| ajb wrote:
| That's interesting; I didn't know that to realize it was
| missing.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| > Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for
| infants
|
| I'm reminded of that American high schooler in Uganda running
| an orphanage and ran into this exact issue when doing a
| transfusion on a malnourished infant. [1]
|
| She was skilled enough to perform a transfusion and
| knowledgeable enough to test for a ABO+/- match but not so
| knowledgeable as to be sensitive to this issue with
| disastrous results.
|
| On the other hand her clinics metrics were on par or slightly
| above the local hospitals so it's not clear to me they would
| have faired better getting care elsewhere there.
|
| [1] https://stories.showmax.com/za/hbos-docuseries-savior-
| comple...
| leereeves wrote:
| I don't know anything about the case in Uganda, but
| transfusion reactions can happen to anyone, even in the
| United States.
|
| We don't actually express antibodies to antigens until
| we're exposed to them, so crossmatching won't detect a
| minor antigen mismatch until the first transfusion
| containing the antigen is administered.
|
| That first time causes a delayed hemolytic transfusion
| reaction, which is generally milder than the kind of
| reaction crossmatching will prevent, but can be serious or
| even fatal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_hemolytic_transfusion
| _...
| mmazing wrote:
| Type O Negative here, they all kill me so luckily I don't
| have to guess!
| h1fra wrote:
| @dang should change the OP, entrevue is really a poor website
| (think tmz)
| wut42 wrote:
| TMZ is a very respectable publication if you compare it to
| Entrevue...
| j-bos wrote:
| You'll need to email the mods.
| spidersouris wrote:
| FYI, the only English article at the time of posting was
| Entrevue's, which is why it was initially chosen. But indeed,
| Le Monde's article is much better.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the URL from https://entrevue.fr/en/un-
| groupe-sanguin-inedit-decouvert-en... to a different article
| (in English). Thanks!
| kimos wrote:
| My clearly incorrect understanding was that there are ~8 blood
| types. So reading that there are 48 is shocking.
| nick238 wrote:
| There are 48 blood type _systems_ , of which ABO (giving A, B,
| AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common
| types.
|
| There are effectively millions of types because all the systems
| combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh
| don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they
| just go with them.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why are A and B considered to belong to the same "system"?
| They combine with each other combinatorially in exactly the
| same way that rhesus factor combines with them, and
| presumably the same way that all other systems combine with
| all other systems.
| thechao wrote:
| Hold my beer; I'm gonna middlebrow this! My best guess
| (dimly remembered from drawing blood for testing in my lab)
| is that these "groups" (systems?) all live at the same
| place on the chromosomes that do/n't express them --
| they're alleles.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Blood type systems are defined by the single allele that
| encodes the antigens (as you point out, sometimes multiple
| antigens per allele). This table shows all of the different
| blood type systems, https://www.isbtweb.org/resource/tableo
| fbloodgroupsystems.ht..., and the chromosomal location of
| the respective allele.
| wbl wrote:
| ABO all involve the same gene locus and the same protein
| just different glycans that get added.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABO_(gene)
| gus_massa wrote:
| A few years ago, I made a comment in a similar topic asking
| for more details, and I got a very good reply. Hat tip to
| tait:
|
| > _It 's complicated._
|
| > _There are more than 35 red blood cell groups
| (seehttps://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/blood-
| typ... for a nice writeup). For each of those blood groups,
| there is more than one possible configuration of some protein
| or carbohydrate (something like more than one possible
| genetic sequence leading to more than one kind of molecule on
| the surface of the RBCs)._
|
| > _And, even with ABO, there can be infrequent variations
| that make things more complicated (seehttps://professionaledu
| cation.blood.ca/en/transfusion/best-p... for more)._
|
| > _For the other blood groups, I think every case the groups
| were identified because a patient somewhere made an antibody,
| causing either a transfusion reaction (if not tested ahead of
| time) or, more likely, a positive (incompatible) reaction on
| in compatibility testing._
|
| > [...]
|
| It's worth reading the full original comment because it has
| more interesting details
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33507052
| hinkley wrote:
| Is that what's going on with organ matching?
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| The other thing people should have more awareness of is that
| plasma and blood have opposite compatibilities; a universal
| plasma donor will have blood only compatible to their blood
| type and vice versa.
|
| Which makes the hollywood trope of 'i'm a universal donor'
| really silly. Universal donor of what? And then they pump the
| blood and plasma straight into the other person pretty much
| guaranteeing problems since either the blood or plasma will be
| incompatible. The only reason blood donation works is due to
| machines that separate the blood and plasma.
| greggsy wrote:
| When people are directly piped to each other in movies, I
| often wonder if there is some negotiation protocol like PD
| that ensures that the donor continues to charge the
| recipient, even when their capacities both reach equilibrium.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The discovery of new blood types isn't limited to transfusion
| emergencies. It also sheds light on certain previously
| unexplained pathologies. The specialist discusses the recent case
| of three siblings who had suffered from mysterious
| rheumatological disorders since adolescence. It was only after
| identifying their rare blood type that doctors were able to
| establish a probable link with their symptoms.
|
| How does that work? Were all three siblings regularly receiving
| donated blood? The article doesn't expand on this at all.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| I read it to mean that the rheumatological symptoms they had
| were the result of their unusual blood type. Hard to say
| without more info, but something about that particular blood
| type could be linked to an inflammatory disorder.
| kalium-xyz wrote:
| This is one of those things that doesnt matter most of the time
| but when it matters it really matters.
| xyst wrote:
| It's cool to see these discoveries, but as a patient. It's
| probably a nightmare to be unique in this aspect.
|
| If American, think higher costs of care. If involved in car
| accident or other traumatic injury outside of normal area, good
| luck getting your blood transfused. Might get lucky with
| substitute. Surgery preparation also more complicated.
|
| Maybe you have competent medical staff that recognize it. Maybe a
| few hematologists in the world familiar with your blood and
| history. Maybe a few neurons fire off in the back of an aging
| emergency physician that recalls this in a case study he/she read
| about in medical school/residency.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| Manga lore fan wikis about to go nuts...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-21 23:00 UTC)