The case is reported of a patient who developed severe hypokalaemia, leading to cardiac arrest, while receiving mithramycin for painful Paget's disease. The patient was also receiving antihypertensive and anti-anginal treatment including bendrofluazide, but plasma potassium before the administration of mithramycin was normal. Hypokalaemia has been reported in previous studies of the use of mith...

Taking an excess amount of caffeine (e.g. overdrinking caffeinated beverages) sometimes causes hypokalaemia. Although the detailed mechanism has not been clarified yet, an increased loss of potassium via the urine stream caused by the diuretic action of caffeine is proposed as one of the possibilities. We report the case of a 50-year-old female outpatient who rapidly developed severe generalize...

Muscle weakness is a common neurological symptom but is rarely due to hypokalaemia consequent on renal disease, as in the patients reported here. Two types of acidosis occur in renal disease. The more common and unfortunately incurable is that complicating chronic renal failure. Less common, but since it is treatable, more important, is renal tubular acidosis. That described by Lightwood (1935)...

Serum and urinary electrolytes were determined in 34 patients with portal systemic encephalopathy. In coma due to hepatitis, 73% had hyponatraemia, 64% hypokalaemia and 75% low urinary sodium and potassium. In coma due to cirrhosis, 78% had hyponatraemia, 69.5% hypokalaemia, 79% low urinary sodium and potassium levels in serum and urine appear sodium and 53% reduced urinary potassium. Low to ba...

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...