Hyponatremia Improvement Is Associated with a Reduced Risk of Mortality: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND Hyponatremia is the most common electrolyte disorder and it is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, there is no clear demonstration that the improvement of serum sodium concentration ([Na(+)]) counteracts the increased risk of mortality associated with hyponatremia. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis that included the published studies that addressed the effect of hyponatremia improvement on mortality. METHODS AND FINDINGS A Medline, Embase and Cochrane search was performed to retrieve all English-language studies of human subjects published up to June 30th 2014, using the following words: "hyponatremia", "hyponatraemia", "mortality", "morbidity" and "sodium". Fifteen studies satisfied inclusion criteria encompassing a total of 13,816 patients. The identification of relevant abstracts, the selection of studies and the subsequent data extraction were performed independently by two of the authors, and conflicts resolved by a third investigator. Across all fifteen studies, any improvement of hyponatremia was associated with a reduced risk of overall mortality (OR=0.57[0.40-0.81]). The association was even stronger when only those studies (n=8) reporting a threshold for serum [Na(+)] improvement to >130 mmol/L were considered (OR=0.51[0.31-0.86]). The reduced mortality rate persisted at follow-up (OR=0.55[0.36-0.84] at 12 months). Meta-regression analyses showed that the reduced mortality associated with hyponatremia improvement was more evident in older subjects and in those with lower serum [Na(+)] at enrollment. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis documents for the first time that improvement in serum [Na(+)] in hyponatremic patients is associated with a reduction of overall mortality.