Cat blood types

Dear colleagues, we are sure that this information may be useful to you.

We are concerned that Ukraine still does not have a widespread mandatory standard for checking blood types during hemotransfusion of dogs and cats. This leads with enviable regularity to frequent complications in the form of anaphylaxis, acute or delayed hemolysis, etc. That is, ignoring the rules for checking blood groups and transfusion only using a crossmatch sample leads to a deterioration in the recipients' conditions and gives rise to a large number of myths about poor prognoses during transfusion. This is especially true for cats, given the fact that transfusions "at random" from a donor with group A to a recipient with group B blood result in death in almost 100% of cases. Given that up to 10 transfusions of blood components per week are performed in the intensive care units of Zoolux clinics, and the fact that there is currently no information on the prevalence of blood types among dogs and cats, we decided to make statistics by the groups of patients who were tested at Zoolux.

This review focuses on blood groups in cats.

In total, the study used data on 345 cats that participated in the blood component transfusion program (as a donor or recipient). The blood group of cats was determined in the first 52 cases using RapidVet tests (manufactured in the USA), and then using Alvedia tests (manufactured in France). It is worth noting that when using RapidVet tests, there were also 8 patients with blood type AB. After conducting genetic studies in 2 patients with blood type AB, it turned out that at least in these patients the test result was false. Therefore, we excluded all patients with AB results tested with RapidVet tests from this study. Group AB was not found among all other patients in the 293 patients we tested with the Alvedia test system.

In general, blood group A was found in 83.8% of cats, and blood group B in 16.2%. In general, the statistics for Ukraine do not differ too much from the average for most countries in the United States and Europe, where blood type B is found in cats in 10-20% of cases.

We went further and made a breakdown of blood types among individual breeds. We did not include in these statistics breeds with less than 6 animals.

Breeds not included in the general statistics include: Siamese, Burmese, Exotic, Licoy, Thai, American Curl, Cornish Rex, Devon Rex, Angora, Neva, Bengal, Russian Blue, and Sephiroth Rex.

As we can see from statistics, among mixed-breed cats, the probability of blood type B is 14%. There are breeds, such as Scottish and British cat breeds, that may traditionally have a prevalence of blood type B in the population of up to 50%. In our statistics, the prevalence of blood type B is not so high, but it is 31% in Scottish cats and 20% in British cats.

Interestingly, according to BSAVA statistics, Sphynxes and Maine Coons have blood type A in 100% of cases. According to our statistics, blood type B is found in them in 7% and 13% of cases, respectively. Such breeds as Persian and Siberian had only blood type A. Unfortunately, the sample is too small to draw any conclusions.

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that in the Ukrainian cat population, there are patients with blood groups A and B (probably also with AB in an extremely small percentage of cases). Therefore, when performing transfusion of cat blood products, to increase the safety of the procedure for the recipient, it is imperative to test the blood groups of both donors and recipients.

The next review will be devoted to statistics on dog blood types, which was created thanks to our colleagues from all over Ukraine.