Regarding Blood Group O (Universal Doner) ?

Question

Hi Guys

What is the Physiological Reson for this statement :

"Although Blood Group O is regarded as Universal Donner BUt this is mislead"

Best Regards

Saman SarKo

Answer 1

dont forget the whole positive/negative thing a person with a negative blood type cant recieve from a positive type

Answer 2

The link below tells you quite a bit about blood types.  It appears, which I did not know, that O type blood is the universal donor type, but when it comes to donating plasma (the liquid portion of the blood), only Type O can donate to other Type O individuals.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

A couple of reasons:-

1) People with group O blood have anti-A and anti-B in their plasma so while in an emergency you can give any person concentrated O red cells you don't want to give them too much if they are A, B or AB blood group because of the anti-A and anti-B still in the concentrated  O red cells.

2)If people need plasma in an emergency, AB is the univeral donor because AB people have no anti-A or anti-B in their plasma.

3)Blood is only really compatible when it contains no antigens to antibodies that the receiver may carry.  There are many other antigen systems besides the A-B-O and Rh systems.  People can make antibodies to these antigens from previous blood transfusions or pregnancy (or sometimes from infections eg. mycoplasma, syphilis etc. or occasionally to things in the environment eg. pigeon poo)

You really need to screen for these atypical antibodies and crossmatch blood (ie. incubate patients serum with donor cells) in order to call blood compatible.

To say group O is the universal donor is very simplistic and only applies in very desperate/emergency situations where a patient will die of blood loss and there is nothing else available (rarely happens in big cities).