ABO blood group system and the coronary artery disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

ABO blood group system, a well-known genetic risk factor, has clinically been demonstrated to be linked with thrombotic vascular diseases. However, the relationship between ABO blood group and coronary artery disease (CAD) is still controversial. We here performed an updated meta-analysis of the related studies and tried to elucidate the potential role of ABO blood group as a risk factor for CAD. All detectable case-control and cohort studies comparing the risk of CAD in different ABO blood groups were collected for this analysis through searching PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library. Ultimately, 17 studies covering 225,810 participants were included. The combined results showed that the risk of CAD was significantly higher in blood group A (OR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.03 to 1.26, p = 0.01) and lower in blood group O (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.78 to 0.94, p = 0.0008). Even when studies merely about myocardial infarction (MI) were removed, the risk of CAD was still significantly higher in blood group A (OR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.00 to 1.10, p = 0.03) and lower in blood group O (OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.85 to 0.93, p < 0.00001). This updated systematic review and meta-analysis indicated that both blood group A and non-O were the risk factors of CAD.