Relationship between ABO blood group and Rh factor with oral potentially malignant disorder

INTRODUCTION: Oral cancer is the most life threatening of all oral diseases. It has a prolonged natural history with oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD) as the precursor. Recognition and diagnosis of OPMD will help in early treatment, patient survival and in reducing morbidity related to treatment of oral cancer. OPMDs has multifactorial etiologies and is significantly associated with risk factors of the individual's lifestyle, particularly, chronic use of tobacco, spicy food, alcohol and smoking. Genetic factors also play an important role in the etiology of OPMDs. It is proven by many studies like Dermatoglyphics, Salivary miRNA, micronuclei in buccal mucosa etc., one of such kind is ABO blood group and Rh factor. OBJECTIVE: Aim of our study is to evaluate if any of the ABO blood group and Rh factor is associated with an increased risk for OPMDs. METHODOLOGY: A cross sectional study was conducted in Sri Rajiv Gandhi College of Dental Sciences included 55 patients with clinical and histopathologically proven OPMD's. Blood grouping was determined for all the patients using standardised agglutination method. RESULT: This study showed that people with blood group B+ are 1.46 times at a greater risk to develop OPMDs. CONCLUSION: Our study concludes that subjects with B+ blood group and habit of tobacco chewing and smoking are at higher risk to develop OPMDs than subjects with other blood groups.