Relationship between ABO blood groups and skin cancers.

Studies of associations between various cancers and the ABO blood groups have shown elevated relative risks for some categories of disease. To date, no report has evaluated the relationship between the ABO blood groups and the skin cancers. To investigate this association, we conducted a retrospective study of premalignant and malignant tumors diagnosed in Turkey. All tumors were histologically confirmed. Blood information was obtained for 98 individuals with premalignant and malignant skin tumors, and the distribution of ABO and Rh blood type for cases was compared with that of 419 healthy blood donors from the same geographic area. Although patients with blood group A were higher, group 0 lower than in controls, the differences were not significant. The distribution of Rh factor, blood group B and AB among cases and controls also did not differ significantly. We found a significant relationship between age and skin cancer (p=0.0001). Old patients had 1.238 times higher risk for skin cancer. Further studies in larger series on blood group antigens are needed to elucidate the relationship between these antigens and skin cancer.