GB Nagar’s Child PGI helps find rare blood group of 2-year-old patient

Doctors at Gautam Budh Nagar’s Postgraduate Institute of Child Health, also known as Child PGI hospital, helped save the life of a two-year-old girl from Meerut who had a rare blood group — B+ but with antibodies against the M blood group

Doctors at Gautam Budh Nagar’s Postgraduate Institute of Child Health, also known as Child PGI hospital, helped save the life of a two-year-old girl from Meerut who had a rare blood group — B+ but with antibodies against the M blood group .

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According to Dr Satyam Arora, an associate professor at the hospital, the transfusion medicine department received an emergency call from a private blood bank in Meerut late Friday evening. The patient was suffering from stomach infection with acute dehydration and severe anaemia.

“Her haemoglobin count was down to dangerous levels and in order to run any primary treatment she required a blood transfusion. However, the blood bank was unable to finalise the patient’s blood group, nor they were able to find any compatible blood unit,” said Dr Arora.

The transfusion medicine department’s advanced immunohematology lab that screens and checks rare blood groups is the only government facility available in western Uttar Pradesh, said officials. Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and King George’s Medical College in Lucknow are the other two in the state that have a similar set up.

The sample was brought to the Child PGI Hospital on Saturday afternoon. The department’s analysis showed that the patient had the rare blood group.

There are more than 30 blood group systems, and most people have either A, B, AB or O blood group with a “+” or “-” appended to it denoting the presence or absence of antibodies against the Rhesus antigen in their blood plasma. Transfusion requires patient to receive blood only from those with a matching group or O-, which is known as a universal donor.

But the girl had antibodies against the M blood group, which is rarely documented.

“The condition has not been quantified in any medical literature hence it is difficult to say how rare it is. Patients receiving multiple transfusion like thalassemia patients, dialysis patients and cancer patients often develop these antibodies. Even mothers who have given multiple births also develops these antibodies. However, in this case, it has been found naturally in the patient, which is rare. It is not a disorder,” said Arora.

The presence of the antibody, however, affected the ability of the private lab to figure out the blood group.

“It took our team over three hours using rare blood group reagents and rare blood groups panels,” said Dr Arora.

Dr Anshuman Sharma, in-charge of the blood bank at Nutema Hospital in Meerut where the girl was being treated, the results helped save her life.

“She is from a very poor family and her father is a tailor in a small Meerut village. So far, we have only read such cases in books and medical literature but have never seen it in real life,” said Dr Sharma. “Fortunately, Dr Arora was able to identify the blood group and find a compatible blood unit as well. If the wrong blood unit would have been transfused, the girl would have faced even severe complications for life,” he said.

Transfusion Medicine department at Child PGI has developed the advanced lab for GB Nagar and is also providing help (via telemedicine) to blood banks in other districts like Agra and Meerut.

“The lab was established in 2019 and since then, over 20 rare blood group transfusion have been supported by the transfusion medicine department, with a majority of patients from GB Nagar and Meerut. The department provides regular training to blood banks in UP and gets many calls for such types of difficult cases,” said Dr Arora.