Is there a relationship between stem cell yield obtained from healthy donors and healthy donors' blood type?

Factors affecting adequate mobilization and apheresis are critical for a good yield of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the final product. A female donor, advanced age, smoking, high lactate dehydrogenase levels, high absolute lymphocyte count at baseline were found to be inversely correlated to the number of harvested CD34⁺ cells. However, the data on whether there is a correlation between blood types A, B, AB, O and the number of harvested CD34⁺ cells is insufficient. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of blood types on the stem cell yield in healthy donors.

A total of 807 healthy donors from 10 centers in Türkiye were included in this retrospective study. Donors were subdivided into four groups as A, B, AB, O by their blood types. These four groups were compared in terms of age, sex, ECOG performance score, smoking status, and the amount of harvested CD34⁺ stem cells.

The median age of the 807 healthy donors included in the study was 35 years (11-70). 256 (31.7 %) donors were female and 551 (68.2 %) donors were male. There were 349 donors in type A blood group, 134 in type B blood group, 53 in type AB blood group and 271 donors in type O blood group. The median amount of CD34⁺ cells in the total apheresis product was 7.67 × 10⁶ per kg in type O blood group, 7.52 × 10⁶ per kg in type A blood group, 7.2 × 10⁶ per kg in type B blood group, and 7.45 × 10⁶ per kg in type AB blood group. There was no statistically significant difference among the groups (p:0.673). Smoking was lower in the type B blood group with 29.1 % compared to the other groups. However, there was no statistically significant difference in total amount of CD34⁺ stem cells in the type B blood group who smoked less (p = 0.949).

In our study in which we have retrospectively analyzed the effect of donor blood types on the efficiency of HSCs harvested from peripheral blood in healthy donors, no correlation was found between the blood types and the mobilization and amount of harvested CD34⁺ cells.