The woman has extremely rare ‘dinosaur blood’ in China

The hospital affiliated with Ningbo No. 1 University on January 22 confirmed that this rare case is Ms. Trinh, a local person, who was just discharged from the hospital after a successful surgery. Previously, during preoperative testing, the Blood Transfusion Department discovered that the patient’s ABO blood grouping results had serious abnormalities when the forward and reverse grouping reactions did not match. Doctors immediately stopped the normal procedure and switched to in-depth genetic analysis.

Gene sequencing results determined that Ms. Trinh carries a mutation in the FUT1 gene. Technically, the human body needs a “base layer” of H antigen to build “houses” of blood type A or B. In people with fake Bombay blood type like Ms. Trinh, a genetic mutation prevents the body from creating this base layer, even though she still carries the blueprint of blood type B. Due to the lack of H antigen, regular rapid tests cannot accurately identify it, easily leading to misdiagnosis as blood type O.

Experts call this “dinosaur blood” because the occurrence rate is extremely low, only about one in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people, rarer than the “panda” blood type (RhD negative). As soon as the blood type was accurately determined, the hospital activated the “red alert” process, organizing a multi-specialty consultation to find the safest solution. The subsequent surgery went smoothly thanks to thorough hemostatic measures, the patient did not need a blood transfusion from another person.

Mr. Lu Dingfeng, Head of the Blood Transfusion Department of Ningbo University Hospital No. 1, emphasized that blood transfusion to people with fake Bombay groups is a medical “no-go zone”. Because the patient’s body produces natural antibodies against substance H, transfusion of any regular blood unit is life-threatening. In particular, blood type O – which is considered a specialized donor group in the community – is the most dangerous blood type for Bombay patients, because type O red blood cells contain the most H antigens. If mistakenly transmitted, antibodies in the recipient will fiercely attack the donor’s red blood cells, causing acute hemolysis, kidney failure and immediate shock and death.

In urgent emergency situations, the only solution for these patients is to use autologous blood (collected and reserved before surgery) or special frozen blood from the national rare blood bank. Doctors recommend that people, especially relatives of people with rare blood types, need to proactively undergo screening tests due to the genetic nature of the disease. People whose blood group results are difficult to determine need to go to major hematology centers for clarification, and should keep medical records or consult the process of sending autologous blood to protect lives in critical situations.