Association of O blood type with the prognosis of acute necrotizing encephalopathy in childhood: A single-center cohort study

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) of childhood is a rare but critical disease with global distribution. Few studies have focused on investigating the relationship between O blood type and the prognosis of ANE. We analyzed retrospectively the data of patients with ANE admitted to the Beijing Children’s Hospital from March 2012 to February 2019. Baseline data, clinical characteristics, examination, treatment, and prognosis of O blood group were compared with those of the non-O blood group. Cox regression was used to observe the independent prognostic factors in ANE. Thirty-one ANE patients were recruited, and 8 (25.8%) of these patients were in the O blood group. The rest (n = 23; 74.2%) were in the non-O blood group. No significant differences were found in the demographic characteristics, clinical features, examinations, and treatments between the two groups (p > 0.05). At 28 days after discharge, the overall survival rate of the O blood group was significantly higher than that of the non-O blood group (χ2 = 5.630, p = 0.018). At 1 year after discharge, the survival quality of the O blood group was higher than that of the non-O blood group (p = 0.006). After adjusting for the confounding factors, Cox regression analysis showed that O blood type might be a protective factor in ANE [hazard ratio = 0.283, 95% CI = 0.081–0.988; p = 0.048]. O blood type may be a protective factor for patients with ANE.