25 June 2014 (Wednesday) - Bombay Blood

As a lad I can remember getting a copy of the Guinness Book of Records one Christmas. It told me the rarest blood group in the world was "Bombay Blood". At the time only thee people in the world were known to have that blood type (according to that year's Guinness Book of Records).

I can remember on my first day working in a blood bank (in February 1982) in an impromptu tuorial being told that I would never ever in my working career either encounter an example of "Bombay Blood", or meet any other biomedical scientist (or medical laboratory scientific oficer as we were known then) who had.

Today whilst working alone on the late shift I had a patient with a positive antibody screen. The confirmatory panel was positive (4+) in all cells in both IAT and enzyme techniques. There was a historical report on file:

JANEWAY, KATHRYN 20/06/1987 CMCBC O+ 25.02.14 Anti-H present. This lady types as the very rare Oh (Bombay) phenotype. If blood is required for this patient, it will need to be sourced from the frozen blood bank. Contact NHSBT with as much notice as possible if a requirement for blood is anticipated. Rh/K Phenotype: C+ c+ E- e+ K- (20.01.14) NHSBT Extended Phenotyping: M+ N+ S- s+ P1+ Lu(a-b+) K- k+ Kp(a-b+) Le(a+b-) Fy(a+b+) Jk(a+b-) Cw- H-

"Bombay Blood" - as rare as rocking horse poo. But I've now seen it.