Abstract: Objective To analyze the correlation between ABO blood type and clinicopathological characteristics of HBV-associated HCC (HBV-HCC) patients, and to explore the influence of ABO blood type on the prognosis of HCC patients. Methods The clinical data and prognosis of 888 HBV-HCC patients, who were first diagnosed and then followed up at Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital and underwent liver cancer resection from January 2014 to December 2017, were retrospectively analyzed. The association between ABO blood type and the overall survival rate of HBV-HCC patients after surgery were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression. Results Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the 3-year cumulative overall survival rates of patients with O, A, B and AB blood type were 68%, 59%, 64% and 64%, respectively, and no statistically significant difference was found among different patients (P>0.05). After adjusted for age, gender, smoking history, drinking history, liver cirrhosis, serum AFP level, BCLC stage, and tumor capsular, multivariable Cox regression analyses showed that, compared with patients with type O blood, patients with type A blood had a lower overall survival rate (HR=1.40, 95%CI=1.07-1.83, P=0.015). Further stratified analyses indicated that, among the HCC patients who were male and younger than 55 years old smokers or drinkers or with AFP less than 400 ng/mL and complete tumor capsular (all P<0.05), those with type O blood had higher overall survival rate than those with type A blood. Conclusions Blood type may affect the overall survival rate of HCC patients after resection, and  patients with type A blood have a lower overall survival rate.

Key words: Hepatocellular carcinoma, ABO blood type, Overall survival rate, Clinicopathological characteristics