'Gwada negative': French scientists find new blood type in woman

[ajb]

The OP is low on details. There is more in this article (in french): https://www.lindependant.fr/2025/06/21/il-ny-a-quelle-qui-es...

Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list: https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)

[xattt]

Neither article talks about whether this is a minor or a major antigen.

Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant reactions that can be life-threatening.

Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants and premies, but this is way beyond my scope.

[dang]

Ok, we've changed the URL from https://entrevue.fr/en/un-groupe-sanguin-inedit-decouvert-en... to a different article (in English). Thanks!

[h1fra]

@dang should change the OP, entrevue is really a poor website (think tmz)

[kimos]

My clearly incorrect understanding was that there are ~8 blood types. So reading that there are 48 is shocking.

[nick238]

There are 48 blood type systems, of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types.

There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.

[AnotherGoodName]

The other thing people should have more awareness of is that plasma and blood have opposite compatibilities; a universal plasma donor will have blood only compatible to their blood type and vice versa.

Which makes the hollywood trope of ‘i’m a universal donor’ really silly. Universal donor of what? And then they pump the blood and plasma straight into the other person pretty much guaranteeing problems since either the blood or plasma will be incompatible. The only reason blood donation works is due to machines that separate the blood and plasma.

[thaumasiotes]

> The discovery of new blood types isn't limited to transfusion emergencies. It also sheds light on certain previously unexplained pathologies. The specialist discusses the recent case of three siblings who had suffered from mysterious rheumatological disorders since adolescence. It was only after identifying their rare blood type that doctors were able to establish a probable link with their symptoms.

How does that work? Were all three siblings regularly receiving donated blood? The article doesn't expand on this at all.

[spondylosaurus]

I read it to mean that the rheumatological symptoms they had were the result of their unusual blood type. Hard to say without more info, but something about that particular blood type could be linked to an inflammatory disorder.

[kalium-xyz]

This is one of those things that doesnt matter most of the time but when it matters it really matters.

[xyst]

It’s cool to see these discoveries, but as a patient. It’s probably a nightmare to be unique in this aspect.

If American, think higher costs of care. If involved in car accident or other traumatic injury outside of normal area, good luck getting your blood transfused. Might get lucky with substitute. Surgery preparation also more complicated.

Maybe you have competent medical staff that recognize it. Maybe a few hematologists in the world familiar with your blood and history. Maybe a few neurons fire off in the back of an aging emergency physician that recalls this in a case study he/she read about in medical school/residency.

[escapecharacter]

Manga lore fan wikis about to go nuts...

[PokemonNoGo]

Why?

[tetris11]

I wonder why they named it PIGZ

[wincy]

I worked with some Koreans and asking them about Fan Death is something they’ll laugh about like it’s silly but then say “but for real, you should open the door if you run your fan, just in case”. I’d imagine they feel similarly about blood types. People believe it the way they believe astrology.

[paxys]

Still more reasonable than basing your entire personality on the month you were born.

[newsbinator]

Younger generations are now heavily into MBTI. And I mean heavily: you won't find a person under 35 or so who doesn't know their MBTI letters.

[izzydata]

I remember reading something about peoples personalities being vaguely related to their names which makes even less sense. Unless peoples names subtlety influence their behavior. Perhaps if these blood type ideas are so prevalent in Korea and everyone from a very young age is aware of their blood type they might have a self fulfilling prophecy.

[pezezin]

Japanese people are the same, to the point that even anime characters have a blood type.

[Drugein]

Well, it's definitely true to some extent, since there will 100% be some genes that contribute in some way to a person's personality that are colocated with genes responsible for blood type.

[ajuc]

I'm pretty sure you could get statistically significant correlation and publish it (at least in psychology) if you really wanted to :)

[petre]

No worries, they won't go to set up blind dates with Guadelupians.

[llm_nerd]

FWIW, in trying to map normal blood types like O- or AB+ to the 47 (now 48 or 49) blood group systems, apparently that is only basically a value on the type 001 (ABO Group System) and type 004 (Rh group system). People could still have antigens that further bifurcate in the other 45+ blood group systems.

So our ABO+/- system already doesn't have information on the other 45+ systems, and this new antigen wouldn't change that high level classification.