Hypokalaemia, Uraemia, and Tetany

Hypokalaemia.

OBJECTIVE To review the metabolism and function of potassium and causes and management of hypokalaemia. DATA SOURCES A review of studies reported from 1966 to 1998 and identified through a MEDLINE search of the English-language literature of hypokalaemia. SUMMARY OF REVIEW Potassium is predominantly an intracellular ion that contributes to approximately 50% of the intracellular fluid osmola...

Psychogenic vomiting and hypokalaemia.

Chronic hypokalaemia and nephrocalcinosis

Unravelling chronic hypokalaemia can be a clinical challenge in some patients. History and physical examination can be misleading or inaccurate. Diagnostic steps usually involve assessing urinary potassium excretion, transtubular potassium gradient (TTKG) and concomitant acid–base disturbances. In those patients with low urinary potassium excretion, a gastrointestinal cause for the hypokalaemia...

Hypophosphataemia and hypokalaemia.

Correspondence BRM= Most of Dr. Birdwood's missionary zeal is harmless, and some of it is a useful reminder of our age-old obligations to the sick. But I must protest at his attack on health centres and at what is suspiciously like a sneer at the Royal College of General Practitioners' "ideal"; his experience of both must be lamentably small and/or distorted. Health centres-of all shapes and si...

Lysozyme and hypokalaemia.

Serum potassium, lysozyme and urinary lysozyme measurements were made in 98 patients with tuberculosis, 18 with sarcoidosis and 30 with acute myeloid leukaemia. Serum K concentration fell below 3.5 mmol/l in 17 of the 30 leukaemic patients and only 7 of these had raised serum lysozyme concentrations. None of the patients in the tuberculosis-sarcoidosis group with lysozymaemia or lysozymuria dev...