Sodium and Potassium Ions Levels in Cirrhosis and Chronic Liver Disease of Iraqi Patients

Serum sodium and potassium ions are independent predictors of severity in chronic and cirrhotic liver disease (LD) patients. To investigate the ratio of these electrolytes in patients infected by LD and how far they associated with type of LD, prospective data were polled on 41 patients had chronic and cirrhosis LD from Baghdad in Iraq for a period of two months .The results were compared with those obtained from healthy subjects .All samples were collected from The City of Medicine hospital of digestive tract diseases. The prevalence of hyponatremia had a significance appearance in cirrhotic patients when compared with the healthy group (130.4 vs. 147.1mmol/l, p<0.05), and a significance hyperkalemia in chronic liver patients when compared with healthy subjects (5.7 vs. 3.9 mmol/l, p<0.05). A strong correlation between the type of liver disease and the level of sodium and potassium ions indicates that cirrhosis liver lead to hyponatremia (r=0.78, p<0.03), and chronic liver leads to hyperkalemia ( r=0.83, p<0.02). In conclusion low serum sodium levels are associated with cirrhotic LD type and lead to increase potassium level, while hyperkalemia is positively related to chronic LD type. AbbreviationsChronic LD: chronic liver disease, Cirrhosis LD: cirrhosis liver disease, GPT: glutamate pyruvate transaminase. Keywordshyponatreamia, cirrhosis liver disease, hyperkalemia, Na-K pump.